iliiiiiliiiiiif 


ill 


iliii 


3  aia3*^lf^t7i>i:^<l4 


i4»i44*j-4i»*fcij***. 


Columbia  ®nttiem'tj) 

THE  LIBRARIES 


GIFT  OF 
NELSON  GLENN  McCREA 


^ 


A    SHORT 
HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 


A   SHORT   HISTORY 
OF   CHRISTIANITY 

FROM    THE    FRENCH    OF 

SALOMON    REINACH 

AUTHOR   OF   "  APOLLO,"    ETC. 

BY 

FLORENCE    SIMMONDS 

OFFICIER    DE    l'ACAD^IMTE    FRANCAlSE 


A  Florentine  painting  of  the  fifteenth  century 
at  Narbonne,  France, 


J  «        J     J   '        O      1  » 


NEW   YORK:   G,   ?.   PUTNAM'S   SONS 
•'     MCMXXir*  ■  •  •"  • 


»    »  »'    »  , 


'P19- 


TO 

N.  C.  B. 


S,  R. 


^/J..^     '    V, 


■^<„ 


•    «-  •         •«*         *^^  ••        ••        ••••• 


PREFACE 

This  study  is  founded  on  the  five  concluding  chapters  of 
Orpheus,  Histoire  generale  des  Religions,  first  published  in  1909, 
of  which,  in  spite  of  the  war,  more  than  30,000  copies  have 
been  sold.  It  has  been  translated  into  English,  German, 
Russian,  Italian,  Spanish  and  Swedish.  Certain  chapters  of  it 
have  become  somewhat  antiquated ;  all  require  revision.  While 
rewriting  in  part  the  history  of  Christianity,  I  have  been 
careful  not  to  alter  its  character  as  a  sketch.  The  bibliography, 
an  important  feature  even  in  such  attempts,  has  been  brought 
up  to  date. 

Although  I  know  more  than  I  did  thirteen  years  ago,  my 
general  ideas  have  not  varied.  Christianity,  like  all  other 
religions,  should  be  treated  by  history  as  a  purely  human 
institution  ;  but  it  is  the  greatest  of  all,  not  excepting  Buddhism, 
because  it  suits  the  temper  of  progressive  and  laborious  nations, 
and  adapts  itself  to  the  most  various  conditions  of  society. 
Civilisation  and  Christianity  are  united  as  by  an  indissoluble 
marriage  tie.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  mishaps  and 
misdeeds  of  dogmatic  theology  and  ambitious  priestcraft,  things 
which  I  have  not  tried  to  conceal,  it  is  certain  that  Christianity, 
while  opposing  a  veto  to  unbridled  and  degraded  superstition, 
has  taught  and  teaches  the  world  the  only  moral  lessons 
accessible  to  every  one,  thus  preserving  and  propagating  the 
most  enduring  elements  of  Hebrew  and  Hellenic  wisdom,  and 
cleansing  and  softening  the  animal  instincts  of  the  human  race. 
If  those  gospel  lessons,  though  preached  to  thousands  of  millions 
for  twenty  centuries,  have  not  yet  been  assimilated  by  mankind, 


vi  PREFACE 

they  have  at  least  acted  as  a  permanent  antidote  against 
egotism  and  cruelty.  Their  beneficent  influence  is  not  only 
a  thing  of  the  past,  but  of  the  future.  I  do  not  share  the 
opinion  that  they  have  as  yet  been  superseded  by  some  sort 
of  a  lay  philosophy  or  theosophy. 


S.  R. 


*Si^  Germain-en-Laye 
March  1922. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

PAQB 
CHRISTIAN    ORIGINS      ........  1 


CHAPTER   II 

CHRISTIANITY  :     FROM    ST.    PAUL    TO   JUSTINIAN  ...  40 

CHAPTER   III 

CHRISTIANITY  :     FROM    JUSTINIAN    TO    CHARLES    V  .  .  .62 

CHAPTER   IV 

CHRISTIANITY:     FROM    LUTHER    TO    THE    ENCYCLOPEDIA         .  .108 

CHAPTER  V 

CHRISTIANITY  :    FROM    THE    ENCYCLOPEDIA    TO    THE    CONDEMNATION 

OF    MODERNISM  ........        151 

EPILOGUE 212 

INDEX     ..........        217 


ni 


CHAPTER   I 


CHRISTIAN    0RIGIK9 


Myth  and  history — The  Canon  of  the  New  Testament — The  orthodox  tradition 
as  to  the  Evangelists — The  conclusions  of  criticism  on  this  point — The 
date  of  our  Gospels — The  synoptical  Gospels — Testimony  of  Papias — 
The  composition  of  the  synoptical  Gospels— The  Fourth  Gospel — The 
lack  of  historical  authority  for  the  Gospels — The  idea  of  the  Messiah — 
The  silence  of  secular  writers — The  testimony  of  Tacitus — Uncertain 
chronology  of  the  life  of  Jesus — Uncertainty  as  to  His  trial  and  death — 
The  Docetes— The  Christ  of  St.  Paul— The  supposed  fulfilment  of  prophe- 
cies—The apocryphal  Gospels — The  Epistles  of  St.  Paul— Chronology  of 
St.  Paul's  apostolate— The  Catholic  Epistles— The  Epistle  of  St.  John 
and  the  verse  of  the  "three  witnesses" — The  Apocalypse  of  St.  John — 
The  Apocalypse  of  St.  Peter— Various  Epistles— The  Pastor  of  Hernias— 
The  Symbols  and  the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles — The  pseudo-Clementine 
writings — Simon  M  agus — Antichrist. 

1.  The  beginning  of  every  history  is  shrouded  in  legend; 
Christianity  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  The  Churches  insist 
that  the  legends  of  Christianity  are  pure  history ;  if  this  were 
so,  it  would  be  the  greatest  of  miracles. 

2.  Christianity  belongs  to  a  group  of  religions  quite  different 
from  the  official  creeds  of  Judaea,  Greece  and  Rome.  The 
essential  feature  of  the  former  group  consists  of  initiation  into 
the  cult  of  a  Saviour-God,  who  assumed  human  form,  taught, 
suffered,  died  and  rose  from  the  dead;  the  reward  of  the 
initiated  is  salvation.  Such  were  the  religions  of  Osiris,  Diony- 
sos,  Orpheus,  Adonis,  Attis,  and  the  like.  Christianity  is  the 
most  recent  of  its  class,  the  only  perfectly  moral  and  decent  one, 
and  the  only  one  that  has  triumphed  and  survived.  But  it 
differs  from  all  the  others  in  a  very  striking  peculiarity :  the 
Saviour-God  of  the  Christians  lived  in  historical  times,  not  in 
a  remote,  obscure  and  unattainable  past.  So  what  we  may  call, 
for  analogy's  sake,  the  myth  of  Christ,  the  evolution  of  which 
can  be  clearly  traced  from  the  time  of  St.  Paul  and  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  must  be  distinguished  from  the  history  of  Jesus : 


2        A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

a  most  difficult  task,  the  more  so  as  our  earliest  documents 
relating  to  Jesus  are  already  steeped  in  miracle  and  myth. 

3.  Twenty-seven  little  Greek  compositions,  all  the  work  of 
Christian  writers,  compose  what  is  known  as  the  Canon  or  rule 
of  the  New  Testament.  They  are  :  the  four  so-called  canonical 
Gospels  ^  (the  Gospels  according  to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and 
John),  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  twenty-one  letters  attributed 
to  Apostles  (Paul,  Peter,  John,  James  and  Jude),  and  the 
Apocalypse  or  Revelation  attributed  to  St.  John. 

4.  This  Canon  was  practically  established  about  350  a.d., 
after  the  Council  of  Nicaea  (a.d.  325),  and  was  confirmed  for  the 
Western  churches  by  St.  Augustine  in  397 ;  the  only  doubtful 
item  was  the  Apocalypse,  and  this  was  still  considered  not 
altogether  above  suspicion  in  France  during  the  eighth  century. 
But  the  first  idea  of  a  Canon  dates  from  a.d.  150;  it  was  the 
reputed  heretic,  Marcion,  who  then  formed  the  first  collection 
of  the  kind,  which  included  Luke  and  the  majority  of  the 
Pauline  epistles.  Down  to  this  time  all  quotations  from  "  the 
Scriptures ""  in  the  works  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers  (or  early 
orthodox  Christian  writers)  refer  almost  exclusively  to  the  Old 
Testament.^ 

5.  A  mutilated  Latin  catalogue,  discovered  at  Milan  by  the 
Italian  scholar  Muratori  (1672-1750)  and  dating  from  about 
150  to  200  A.D.,  enumerates  all  the  essentials  of  our  Canon,  but 
adds  the  Apocalypse  of  St.  Peter,  which  has  been  discovered  in 
Egypt  in  our  own  times.  This  catalogue  was  probably  the 
Canon  of  the  Roman  Church  in  the  second  century. 

6.  It  is  supposed  that  the  definitive  Canon  was  formed  of 
the  collected  writings  which  w^ere  read  in  the  majority  of  the 
large  Churches,  and  considered  in  harmony  with  the  average 
opinion  of  Christendom.  There  could,  of  course,  have  been  no 
question  in  those  days  of  a  scientific  criterion,  based  on  the 
origin  and  history  of  these  writings.  "  If  it  be  true  that  the 
Church  applied  a  certain  critical  judgment  to  the  choice  and 

^  Euavgdion  (Greek),  i.e.  "good  news." 

*  "  It  ma}'  be  confideutly  asserted  that  these  writers  [Christians  of  tlie  first 
half  of  the  second  century]  did  not  know  our  Gospels,  or,  if  they  did  know 
them,  that  they  never  mention  or  quote  them,  which  comes  to  the  same  thing 
for  us."     (Michel  Nicolas,  Etudes  sur  la  Bible,  vol.  ii.  p.  5). 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  3 

acceptance  of  the  sacred  books,  it  was  not  the  critical  judgment 
of  the  modern  historian,  but  an  opinion  inspired  by  faith  and 
based  upon  the  value  of  these  writings  from  the  point  of  view 
of  faith."  1 

7.  Matthew  or  Levi  was,  according  to  tradition,  a  publican 
or  tax-collector  who  attached  himself  to  Jesus.  Mark  is  said  to 
have  been  the  secretary  of  Peter,  whom  he  accompanied  to 
Rome,  and  the  founder  of  the  Church  of  Alexandria.  A 
companion  of  St.  Paul,  Luke,  a  physician  of  Antioch,  wrote 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  as  a  sequel  to  his  Gospel.  John  the 
Evangelist,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  was  one  of  the  twelve  Apostles, 
the  one  to  whom  Jesus  commended  His  mother  from  the  Cross. 
After  living  at  Ephesus,  he  was  banished  to  Patmos,  and  there 
he  is  supposed  to  have  written  the  Apocalypse  in  his  old  age. 

Thus,  if  the  tradition  were  well  founded,  we  should  possess 
the  writings  of  two  eye-witnesses  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  Matthew 
and  John,  and  of  two  intimate  friends  of  Peter  and  Paul.  It 
matters  little  that  the  Gospels  purport  to  be  according  to 
St.  Matthew,  according  to  St.  Luke,  &c,  ;  the  prologue  to 
St.  Luke's  Gospel  sufficiently  shows  that  he  claims  to  be  the 
author,  not  only  the  inspirer  of  his  book. 

8.  The  tradition  of  the  Church  is  no  longer  tenable.  Not 
one  of  the  Gospels  is  the  work  of  an  eye-witness ;  we  need  only 
read  them  attentively  to  be  convinced  of  this.  It  is  true  that 
certain  passages  seem  to  suggest  the  converse,  and  it  is  therefore 
necessary  to  examine  them  here.  John  xix.  35  (a  soldier  has 
pierced  the  side  of  Jesus  with  a  spear) :  "  And  he  that  saw  it 
bare  record,  and  his  record  is  true ;  and  he  knoweth  that  he 
saith  true,  that  ye  might  believe."  This  means  that  the  witness 
invoked  is  John,  whom  the  Fourth  Gospel  calls  "  the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved,""  and  who  was  the  only  one  of  the  Apostles 
present  at  the  Passion.  But  this  mode  of  expression  is  ob- 
viously inappropriate  to  the  author  of  the  book ;  it  is  an 
appeal  to  the  testimony  of  another  person ;  so  the  writer  of 
the  Gospel  cannot  have  been  an  eye-witness  of  what  he  describes. 
The  second  passage  is  to  be  found  at  the  end  of  the  same 
Gospel,  as  an  early  addition  to  the  original  text  (xxi.  24)  :  "  This 

1  Loisy,  SUnples  Reflexions  (1908),  p.  33. 


4        A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

is  the  disciple  which  testifieth  of  these  things,  and  wrote  these 
things,  and  we  know  that  his  testimony  is  true.  And  there  are 
also  many  other  things  which  Jesus  did,  the  which,  if  they 
should  be  written  every  one,  I  suppose  that  even  the  world 
itself  could  not  contain  the  books  that  should  be  written." 
Here  it  is  even  more  evident  that  the  writer  is  attesting  the 
veracity  of  the  disciple ;  for,  "  if  this  disciple  had  been  known 
to  all  as  the  author  of  the  Gospel,  it  would  not  have  been 
necessary  to  affirm  the  fact."  ^  Thus  we  find  that  these  two 
texts  prove  the  exact  opposite  of  what  they  are  supposed  to 
demonstrate,  and  further  suggest  the  presumption  of  a  pious 
fraud  on  the  part  of  the  ultimate  compiler. 

9.  In  the  narrative  of  the  arrest  of  Jesus  as  related  by 
St.  Mark  (xiv.  51,  52)  we  read  of  the  flight  of  the  disciples,  and 
of  a  young  man  who  followed  Jesus,  "  having  a  linen  cloth  cast 
about  his  naked  body ;  and  the  young  men  laid  hold  on  him, 
and  he  left  the  linen  cloth,  and  fled  from  them  naked,"  It  was 
long  supposed  that  this  young  man  was  Mark  himself,  and  this 
passage  has  been  compared  to  an  artist's  signature  hidden  away 
in  the  corner  of  a  picture.  Were  this  the  case,  it  would  give 
immense  authority  to  Mark's  narrative,  such  as  none  of  the 
Gospel  texts  possess.  But  the  source  of  this  episode  is  a  pro- 
phecy by  Amos  (ii.  16) :  "  And  he  that  is  courageous  among 
the  mighty  shall  flee  away  naked  in  that  day."  Here  we  have 
a  detail,  apparently  characteristic,  because  it  seems  insignificant, 
which  was  inserted  in  the  narrative  to  mark  in  the  most  puerile 
fashion  the  fulfilment  of  a  prophecy.  The  same  preoccupation 
caused  the  insertion  of  numerous  episodes  in  our  Gospels  (§  45). 
What  confidence  can  we  feel  in  texts  which  have  been  so 
tampered  with  ? 

10.  The  conclusion  of  liberal  exegesis  in  this  delicate  matter 
has  been  formulated  as  follows  by  the  Abbe  Loisy :  "  To  allege 
that  the  earliest  testimony  as  to  the  origin  of  the  Gospels  is 
certain,  precise,  traditional  and  historical  is  to  falsify  its 
character  entirely ;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  hypothetical,  vague, 
legendary  and  partisan ;  it  shows  that  at  the  period  when  the 
Gospels  were  brought  forward  by  the  Church  to  check  the 

1  Loisy,  Quatrihne  Evangile,  p.  250, 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  5 

extravagances  of  Gnostic  heresy,  only  the  vaguest  information 
existed  as  to  their  origin."  ^ 

11.  Why  are  there  only  ^be^r  canonical  Gospels  .?  "  Because," 
says  St.  Irenaeus  (c.  170),  "  there  are  four  cardinal  points."  This 
reply  cannot  be  taken  seriously.  There  were  indeed  a  great 
many  writings  called  Gospels.  The  Church  finally  adopted  four, 
guaranteeing  their  inspiration  and  absolute  veracity,  no  doubt 
because  they  were  in  favour  in  four  very  influential  churches, 
Matthew  at  Jerusalem,  Mark  at  Rome  or  at  Alexandria,  Luke 
at  Antioch,  John  at  Ephesus.  When  the  Canon  was  constituted, 
these  Gospels  were  so  well  known  that  it  was  no  longer  possible 
to  make  an  abstract  from  them  in  the  shape  of  a  single  narrative, 
at  the  cost  of  destroying  the  sources.  Such  a  single  narrative — 
known  as  a  harmonised  Gospel — would  have  greatly  facilitated 
the  task  of  a  Church,  embarrassed  by  four  Gospels  claiming  to  be 
inspired  which  are  contradictory  and  irreconcilable.  If  then  we 
have  four  Canonical  Gospels,  when  the  inception  of  the  Canon 
dates  from  a.d.  150,  our  Gospels  are  evidently  considerably  earlier 
than  this  in  date,  a  conclusion  which  does  not,  however,  exclude 
the  hypothesis  of  later  modifications. 

12.  It  is  possible  to  fix  the  approximate  date  of  our  Gospels 
in  the  form  in  which  they  have  come  down  to  us.  Matthew 
makes  Jesus  predict  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  (xxiv.  29-31), 
and,  as  its  sequel,  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  clouds. 
This  can  only  have  been  written  a  very  short  time  before  or 
after  the  catastrophe  of  a.d.  70,  when  it  was  still  possible  to 
believe  in  the  speedy  advent  of  Christ  in  glory,  heralded  by  the 
great  upheaval.  In  Luke  (xxi.  9-24)  the  second  coming  (called 
Parotisia,  presence)  is  foretold  for  a  later  period.  "  These  things 
must  first  come  to  pass,"  said  Jesus,  "  but  the  end  is  not  by-and- 
by."2  Here  we  are  between  a.d.  80  and  100,  and  nearer  to  the 
second  than  to  the  first  of  these  dates.  The  parallel  passage  in 
Mark  (chap,  xiii.)  is  valueless,  for  in  it  Jesus  predicts  the 
sufferings  of  the  Apostles  and  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel 
among  all  nations  ;  it  is  an  obvious  interpolation.  But  as  the 
material  in  Mark  was  evidently  used  by  Matthew,  we  may  date 

'  Loisy,  Quelques  Riflexiom,  p.  127. 
^  See  Michel  Nicolas,  iltudes,  ii.  p.  8. 


6        A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

it  between  a.d.  60  and  70.  As  to  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  if  it 
is  by  the  same  hand  as  the  Apocalypse,  which  dates  from  a.d.  93, 
we  may  place  it  towards  the  end  of  the  first,  or  the  beginning  of 
the  second  century  ;  but  it  is  probably  somewhat  later  (a.d.  130). 

13.  The  diffusion  of  our  Gospels  in  Christian  communities 
was  a  slow  process.  With  the  exception  of  Papias  (c.  120), 
who  speaks  of  a  narrative  by  Mark,  and  a  collection  of  the 
sayings  of  Jesus,  no  Christian  writer  of  the  first  half  of  the 
second  century  quotes  the  Gospels  or  their  reputed  authors  (|  4). 
It  is  true  that  St.  Justin  (c.  150)  mentions  the  Memoirs  of 
the  Apostles,  but  the  extracts  he  gives  from  these  are  never 
textually  identical  with  passages  in  our  Gospels.  Some  of  them 
come  from  unrecognised  gospels,  called  apocryphal,  others  from 
unknown  sources.  The  teaching  of  Jesus  was  still  in  a  confused 
state,  comprising  those  numerous  narratives  mentioned  by 
Luke  in  his  preamble,  and  a  still  more  considerable  body 
of  oral  tradition,  which  was  transmitted  by  preaching.  It 
is  probable  that  our  Evangelists  acquired  the  authority  faith 
has  retained  for  them  when  the  Church  came  into  conflict 
with  the  Gnostic  sects,  which  based  their  teaching  upon 
books  perhaps  hardly  less  historical,  but  certainly  much  more 
extravagant. 

14.  The  three  Gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark  and  Luke  relate 
more  or  less  the  same  facts  in  a  similar  order ;  they  may  be 
printed  side  by  side  in  three  columns ;  ^  this  collation  or 
synopsis  of  the  three  works  has  caused  them  to  be  known  as  the 
synoptical  gospels.  The  Gospel  of  St.  John  does  not  lend  itself 
to  any  comparative  study  of  this  sort,  and  must  be  examined 
by  itself. 

15.  Here  we  are  confronted  with  the  most  difficult  question 
of  Gospel  exegesis.  When  the  three  synoptical  writers  relate  the 
same  facts,  they  do  not  usually  describe  them  as  taking  place 
under  identical  circumstances.  When  they  do  agree,  it  is  not  in 
a  general  way,  but  often  literally,  in  every  detail  of  a  series  of 
long  phrases.  These  documents  must  therefore  have  had  a 
common  source,  or  several  common  sources.     But  this  well- 

1  See  the  convenient  edition  published  by  Chastand  and  l!<lorG\,Concordance 
des  Evangilcs,  Neufchatel,  1901. 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  7 

spring  cannot  have  been  a  lost  Gospel,  richer  in  details  than 
those  we  possess,  for  in  that  case  we  should  not  find  in  one  or 
the  other  of  the  three  lacunae  and  important  variations  in  a 
narrative  of  the  same  event.  There  must  have  been  several 
sources,  which  we  must  endeavour  to  trace.  We  have,  to 
help  us  in  this  task,  two  very  important  evidences :  Luke's 
preamble,  and  certain  fragments  by  Papias,  transcribed  about 
330  A.D.  by  Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Caesarea.  Papias'  own  Avork 
is  lost. 

16.  This  is  Luke's  exordium:  "Forasmuch  as  many  have 
taken  in  hand  to  set  forth  in  order  a  declaration  of  those 
things  which  are  most  surely  believed  among  us,  even  as  they 
delivered  them  unto  us,  which  from  the  beginning  were  eye- 
witnesses and  ministers  of  the  word ;  it  seemed  good  to  me 
also,  having  had  perfect  understanding  of  all  things  from 
the  very  first,  to  write  unto  thee  in  order,  most  excellent 
Theophilus,!  ^^i^^t  thou  mightest  know  the  certainty  of  those 
things  wherein  thou  hast  been  instructed."  This  clearly  means 
that  when  St.  Luke  wrote  his  Gospel,  many  evangelical  narratives 
based  on  the  testimony  of  the  Apostles  existed,  but  that  they 
lacked  proper  co-ordination.  Luke  was  therefore  a  compiler, 
working  from  written  documents.  If  everything  important  in 
Matthew  and  Mark  were  to  be  found  in  Luke,  we  should  suppose 
that  he  had  referred  to  these  two  Gospels  ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
certain  essential  episodes,  such  as  the  Massacre  of  the  Innocents 
and  the  Flight  into  Egypt,  are  found  only  in  Matthew,  and 
a  few  others  only  in  Mark,  about  an  eighth  part  of  whose 
Gospel  belongs  exclusively  to  himself.  It  is  evident  therefore 
that  Luke  cannot  have  known  either  our  Gospel  according  to 
St.  Matthew  or  our  Gospel  according  to  St.  Mark.  We  now 
perceive  that  Luke  had  no  first-hand  information,  and  that  our 
Matthew  and  Mark  are  not  the  narratives  of  eye-witnesses,  but 
are  based  upon  records  no  longer  in  existence. 

17.  Let  us  now  examine  the  texts  of  Papias,  Bishop  of 
Hierapolis  in  Asia  about  120  a.d.,  who  had  known  presbyters  or 
elders  said  to  have  known  the  Apostles.     An  elder  said  this  : 

1  The  epithet  kratiste  applied  by  Luke  to  this  unknown  personage  has 
suggested  the  idea  that  he  was  a  converted  Roman  official. 


8        A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

"  Mark,  the  mouthpiece  of  Peter,  carefully  wrote  down  all  he 
could  remember,  but  he  did  not  write  all  that  Jesus  did  and 
said  in  proper  order,  for  he  had  not  heard  or  followed  the 
Lord ;  but  at  a  later  period,  he  had  followed  Peter,  who  gave 
instruction  as  occasion  arose,  but  did  not  set  forth  the  Lord's 
discourses  in  due  order  ;  Mark  is  therefore  not  to  be  blamed  for 
having  written  down  certain  things  from  memory,  for  he  was 
careful  not  to  omit  anything  he  had  heard,  and  not  to  introduce 
any  errors.  .  .  .  Matthew  had  written  down  the  Lord's  speeches 
(or  oracles)  in  Hebrew,  and  each  one  interpreted  them  as  best  he 
could." 

In  spite  of  the  obvious  mediocrity  of  the  writer,  these  texts 
are  of  the  utmost  importance.  They  prove,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  Mark  referred  to  by  the  elder  who  gave  this  in- 
formation to  Papias  was  not  our  Mark,  whose  Gospel  shows  no 
lack  of  order,  but  merely  one  of  the  sources  drawn  upon  by  our 
Mark ;  and  further,  that  our  Matthew  was  not  the  original 
Matthew,  which  consisted  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  recorded  in 
Hebrew,  and  in  a  somewhat  obscure  manner.  There  is  no 
reason  whatever  to  doubt  the  good  faith  of  Papias'  informant. 

18.  A  careful  comparative  study  of  the  synoptical  writers 
authorises,  I  think,  the  following  propositions,  as  to  which, 
however,  critics  are  not  entirely  agreed : 

a.  The  passages  common  to  Matthew  and  Luke,  which  are 
absent  from  Mark,  are  derived  from  a  Greek  translation  of  the 
Aramaic  collected  sayings  (in  Greek  Log'ia)  of  Jesus,  attributed 
to  Matthew.  This  collection  further  included  certain  narrative 
passages  serving  to  connect  the  sayings,  but,  strangely  enough, 
it  did  not  include  the  Passion.  It  is  designated  by  the  letter  Q 
(the  initial  of  the  German  word  Quelle^  source). 

h.  Our  Mark,  the  conclusion  of  which  (xvi.  9-20)  is  an 
addition  made  at  the  end  of  the  first  century,  and  not  to  be 
found  in  the  earliest  manuscripts,  is  a  compilation,  perhaps 
written  in  Rome,  from  two  older  texts ;  the  first  may  have  been 
Aramaic,  and  it  is  not  certain  that  it  described  the  Passion ; 
the  writer  of  the  second,  who  does  describe  it,  was  acquainted 
with  Q  ;  the  writer  of  oiir  Mark  was  acquainted  with  Matthew 
and  even  with  Luke  and  Paul. 


CHRISTIAN  ORIGINS  9 

c.  Our  Matthew  is  based  upon  Q,  a  collection  which  was 
enlarged  and  recast  several  times,  notably  by  the  help  of  the 
second  version  of  Mark.  The  Pauline  epistles  were  not  unknown 
to  the  writer. 

d.  Our  Luke  is  perhaps  a  second  and  more  complete  edition, 
due  to  the  same  writer  as  the  first,  of  a  text  owned  by  Marcion 
in  A.D.  150.  The  Fathers  of  the  Church  (Tertullian,  Epiphanius, 
&c.)  accused  Marcion  of  having  mutilated  the  text  of  Luke,  and 
pointed  out  various  passages  he  had  suppressed.  In  reality,  he 
seems  to  have  possessed  the  original  Luke,  compiled  from  a 
revised  edition  of  Q,  an  ancient  edition  of  Mark,  and  perhaps 
Paul's  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  together  with  other 
lost  documents.  Otir  Luke  attests  a  knowledge  of  Josephus' 
Antiquities,  published  a.d.  93,  or  at  least  of  some  Greek  source 
drawn  upon  in  that  work.  It  is  notable  that  entire  passages 
given  by  Matthew,  but  not  by  Mark  {e.  g.  xvii.  24-7  ;  xx.  1-16) 
are  not  to  be  found  in  Luke,  and  that  not  a  single  discourse  in 
Matthew  is  reproduced  in  Luke. 

e.  The  Church  has  always  called  Matthew  the  First  Gospel, 
and  Mark  the  Second  Gospel.  As  a  fact,  the  basis  of  Mark  is 
earher  than  our  Matthew,  but  the  basis  of  Matthew  may  be 
earlier  than  our  Mark. 

/.  The  Fourth  Gospel,  called  that  of  St.  John,  is  neither 
the  work  of  St.  John  nor  of  a  contemporary.  The  author  is 
inspired  by  the  Alexandrine  theosophy  of  Philo  the  Jew.  He 
knows  the  synoptical  Gospels,  but  contradicts  them;  he  adds 
some  historical  material  of  uncertain  origin  and  suspicious 
quality.  But  he  is  not  interested  in  history  nor  in  anecdotes  : 
he  is  a  theologian,  justly  called  lio  theologos  by  the  Greek 
Fathers.  St.  John's  Christ  is,  from  the  beginning,  God  Him- 
self; His  miracles  are  few,  but  stupendous;  He  does  not  cast 
out  devils,  as  in  the  Synoptics.  St.  John  knows  nothing  of  the 
contrast  between  Jewish  law  and  Christianity ;  he  knows  very 
little  about  the  Jews  of  former  days.  The  speeches  addressed 
to  them  are,  in  reality,  for  the  readers  only.  The  object  of 
the  book  is  the  spiritual  teaching  of  Christianity,  which  is 
indeed  founded  upon  it.  Some  later  additions  to  the  original 
text  have  been  recognised ;   but  the  question  of  the  sources 


10       A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

and    successive   editions    of  the   Fourth    Gospel   remains  very 
obscure. 

19.  Those  who  are  disquieted  by  the  discrepancies  between 
the  three  synoptical  writers  and  of  their  three  Gospels  with  that 
of  John,  are  generally  assured  that  the  "  Gospels  complete  each 
other."  This  is  not  true.  Far  from  completing,  they  con- 
tradict each  other,  and  when  they  do  not  contradict,  they 
repeat  each  other.  The  Christ  of  Mark  is,  however,  compatible 
with  the  Christ  of  Matthew  and  Luke ;  but  the  Christ  of  John 
is  a  totally  different  person.  "  If  there  is  one  thing  above  others 
that  is  obvious,  but  as  to  which  the  most  powerful  of  theological 
interests  has  caused  a  deliberate  or  unconscious  blindness,  it  is 
the  profound,  the  irreducible  incompatibility  of  the  synoptical 
Gospels  and  the  Fourth  Gospel.  If  Jesus  spoke  and  acted  as  He 
is  said  to  have  spoken  and  acted  in  the  first  three  Gospels,  He 
did  not  speak  and  act  as  He  is  reported  to  have  done  in  the 
fourth."  1  It  is  only  necessary  to  have  an  open  mind,  and  to  be 
able  to  read,  to  convince  ourselves  of  this. 

20.  Broadly  speaking,  our  Gospels  tell  us  what  different 
Christian  communities  believed  concerning  Jesus  between  the 
years  70  and  100  a.d.  They  reflect  a  legendary  and  expository 
labour  carried  on  for  at  least  forty  years  in  the  bosom  of  the 
communities.  As  John  has  no  historic  value  and  Luke  comes  to 
us  at  third  hand,  there  remain  the  sources  of  Mark  and  of 
Matthew,  notably  Q,  and  the  basis  of  Mark.  Thus  all  that  may 
be  sound  in  Mark  and  Matthew  is  derived  from  two  lost 
sources,  of  whose  authority  we  have  no  guarantee.  It  is,  indeed, 
certain  that  the  basis  of  Mark  cannot  go  back  to  Peter,  an 
eye-witness,  for  all  that  relates  to  Peter  in  Mark  is  vague  or 
hostile.  As  to  the  sayings  in  Q,  it  is  obvious  that  no  one  had 
transcribed  them  at  the  moment ;  at  most  we  can  only  see  in 
them  an  echo  of  the  words  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus  repeated 
long  after  His  death,  and  that  more  skilful  men,  influenced  by 
the  preaching  of  St.  Paul,  arranged,  completed  and  transcribed. 
To  speak  of  the  authenticity  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  (the 
mountain  itself  being  a  fiction,  intended  to  serve  as  a  pendant 
to  Sinai),  is  hardly  consistent  with  serious  criticism.    Nay,  more  ; 

^  Loisy,  Quelques  Lcttres  (1908),  p.  130. 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  11 

there  are  words  such  as  those  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  uttered 
during  the  skuuber  of  the  Apostles  (Matt.  xxvi.  39  ;  Mark  xiv. 
35  ;  Luke  xxii.  42),  of  which  it  may  safely  be  said  that  they  were 
neither  heard  nor  put  on  record  by  any  one.  "I  should  not 
believe  in  the  Gospel,"  wrote  St.  Augustine,  "  if  I  had  not  the 
authority  of  the  Church  for  so  doing."  i  The  situation  is 
unchanged,  although  science  has  defined  it  with  singular 
emphasis.  The  Gospels,  stripped  of  the  authority  of  the  Church, 
are  documents  which  cannot  be  utilised  for  a  history  of  the  real 
life  of  Jesus.  They  can  and  should  only  serve  to  teach  us  what 
the  primitive  churches  thought  of  Him,  and  to  acquaint  us 
with  the  origin  of  the  immense  influence  those  opinions  exercised 
on  the  human  race. 

•  •  •  •  • 

21.  Collation  of  our  Gospels,  and  perception  of  the  successive 
strata  which  compose  them  prove  that  even  the  legend  of  Jesus 
as  taught  by  the  Church  is  not  supported  in  all  its  details  by 
the  texts  adduced.  The  miraculous  birth  is  not  mentioned  in 
Mark  ;  it  seems  to  have  been  deliberately  ignored  by  John,  who 
accepts  the  Philonian  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  of  the  Word, 
"the  first-born  God,  the  second  God,  the  intercessor  between 
God  and  man,"  ^  making,  however,  an  essential  addition  of  his 
own  by  identifying  this  "  Word  "  with  the  Messiah.  In  Matthew 
and  in  Luke  the  miraculous  birth  is  recorded  with  conflicting 
details,  elesus  himself  never  alludes  to  it,  and  His  parents  do 
not  understand  Him,  when  they  find  Him  in  the  Temple  and 
he  speaks  of  His  "  Father's  business  "  (Luke  ii.  50).  The  fact 
that  Matthew  and  Luke  give  two  genealogies  (irreconcilable  one 
with  another),  which  trace  the  descent  of  Jesus  from  King  David 
through  Joseph,  is  a  sufficient  evidence  that  the  idea  of  the 
miraculous  birth  was  introduced  rather  late  into  the  tradition. 
These  genealogies,  and  no  doubt  others  no  longer  extant, 
were  composed  to  confirm  the  Jewish  belief  that  the  Messiah 
would  be  of  the  family  of  David  ;  the  story  of  the  divine  birth 

^  St.  Augustine,  Against  the  epistle  entitled:  Of  the  Foundation,  §  5  (ed. 
Vivfes,  vol.  XXV.  p.  435).  Ego  vero  Evangelio  non  credercm,  nisi  me  catholicce 
ecclesioR  commoveret  aioctoritas.  .  .  .  Ego  me  ad  eos  teneam,  quihus  prcecipientibics 
Evangelio  credidi. 

*  Expressions  used  by  Philo, 


12      A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

was,  in  its  turn,  introduced  when  the  idea  of  the  divinity  of 
Jesus  had  become  familiar. 

22.  The  Gospels  speak  with  great  simplicity  of  the  brothers 
and  sisters  of  Jesus.  According  to  Matthew  (i.  25),  He  was 
the  eldest  of  the  family.  The  notion  that  these  brothers  and 
sisters  were  cousins  or  children  of  Joseph  by  a  former  marriage 
is  a  mere  theological  subtlety.  Belief  in  the  virginity  of  Mary 
has  forced  ecclesiastical  writers  to  explain  or  rather  to  eliminate 
the  relationship.^ 

23.  The  idea  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  and  that  He  was 
God  is  clearly  formulated  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but  in  the  first 
three  Gospels  it  appears  in  embryo  only.  The  essential  feature 
of  the  preaching  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels  is  the  announcement 
of  the  reign  of  God,  the  speedy  coming  of  which  is  indicated 
(Matt.  xvi.  28 ;  Mark  ix.  1  ;  Luke  ix.  27).  Jesus  calls  Himself 
the  Son  of  Man,  which  in  Hebrew  is  synonymous  with  man,  and 
Son  of  God,  which  means  inspired  by  God.  He  forbids  His  dis- 
ciples to  call  Him  Messiah  (Matt.  xvi.  20),  and  He  reproves  the 
scribes  for  teaching  that  the  Messiah  would  be  a  descendant  of 
David  (Mark  xii.  35),  a  proof  that  the  Davidic  affiliation  is  no 
less  an  excrescence  than  the  supernatural  affiliation.  In  the 
speech  ascribed  to  St.  Peter  in  the  Acts  (ii.  22)  Jesus  is  no  more 
than  a  divine  man  whom  God  has  raised  from  the  dead.  Finally, 
there  is  no  trace  of  the  Jews  having  accused  Jesus  of  claiming 
to  be  God.  "  It  is  only  in  the  Gospel  of  John  that  the  sayings 
and  the  acts  of  Jesus  tend  to  prove  His  supernatural  mission. 
His  celestial  origin  and  His  divinity.    This  peculiarity  indicates 

the    theological    and    non-historic    character    of    the    Fourth 
Gospel."  2 

24.  Jesus  did  not  institute  Peter  the  head  of  His  Church,  He 
did  not  "  found  the  Papacy."  The  passage  in  Matthew  (xvi.  18) : 
*'  Thou  art  Peter  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  Church  .  .  . 
and  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven," 
&c.  is  obviously  an  interpolation,  made  at  a  period  when  a 
Church  separated  from  the  Synagogue  already  existed.  In  the 
parallel  passages  in  Mark  (viii.  27-32)  and  in  Luke  (ix.  18-22) 
there  is  not  a  word  of  the  primacy  of  Peter,  a  detail  Mark,  the 

'   Loisy,  Qiielques  Lettrcs,  p.  155.  *  Loisy,  Rifiexions,  p.  69. 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  13 

reputed  disciple  of  Peter,  could  hardly  have  omitted  if  he  had 
known  of  it.  The  interpolation  is  probably  later  than  the 
compilation  of  Luke's  Gospel. 

25.  Jesus  taught  no  dogma  of  any  sort,  nor  anything 
resembling  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church.  Himself  baptised 
by  St.  John,  He  baptised  no  one.  The  famous  words:  "This 
is  my  body,  this  is  my  blood,"  do  not  belong  to  the  primitive 
tradition  touching  the  last  Sacrament.  "Jesus  simply  gave 
bread  and  wine  to  His  disciples,  telling  them  that  He  would  not 
eat  and  drink  with  them  again,  until  they  were  together  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."!  The  doctrine  of  sin  and  justification  is 
also  absent  from  the  teaching  of  Christ  in  the  Gospels. ^  The 
idea  of  redemption  appears  only  in  the  passages  interpolated 
under  the  influence  of  St.  Paul's  preaching. 

26.  The  miracles  attributed  to  Jesus  by  evangelical  tradition 
are  exorcisms  (casting  out  devils),  or  allegories  (the  multiplication 
of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  the  transformation  of  water  into  wine 
at  the  marriage-feast  of  Cana).  The  most  unequivocal  of  the 
miracles,  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus,  whose  body  was  already 
decomposed,  is  itself  allegorical ;  it  is  only  recorded  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  If  this  had  been  an  actual  fact,  or  even  a  fact 
embellished  and  transformed  by  ancient  tradition,  it  would  be 
inexplicable  that  the  Synoptic  Writers  make  no  reference  to  it. 

27.  The  miracle  of  Christ's  resurrection  is  related  by  the 
Synoptic  Writers  with  irreconcilable  discrepancies.  The  dis- 
covery of  the  empty  tomb  is  the  less  credible  in  that  the  corpse 
of  Jesus  would  no  doubt  have  been  thrown  by  the  Roman  soldiers 
into  the  common  grave  of  malefactors.  The  end  of  Mark's 
Gospel  (xvi.  9-20)  is,  as  we  have  seen  (§  18),  a  later  addition, 
which  is  not  found  in  the  best  manuscripts.  "The  tradition 
followed  by  the  author  of  the  First  Gospel  is  that  of  the 
authentic  Mark,  according  to  which  the  principal  appearances 
took  place  in  Galilee ;  the  appearances  in  Jerusalem  on  the  day 
of  the  Resurrection  notified  by  Luke  and  John  are  simply 
ignored."  ^  Abbe  Loisy  is  of  opinion  that  the  author  of  the 
Third    Gospel   purposely   concealed    the   testimony   of    Mark 

^  Loisy,  Riflexions,  p.  90.  ^  Loisy,  Evangile  et  ^glise,  p.  199. 

*  Loisy,  Quelques  Lettres,  p.  226. 


14      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

(xvi.  7),  corroborated  by  Matthew,  touching  the  appearances 
of  Jesus  in  Galilee,^  in  order  to  bring  the  disciples  together 
on  the  day  of  the  Resurrection  and  to  keep  them  at  Jerusalem 
until  the  Feast  of  Pentecost.  Even  in  the  revised  form  in 
which  our  texts  have  come  down  to  us,  it  is  evident  that  if 
the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  was  accepted  by  the  early  Christian 
communities  and  St.  Paul,  it  Avas  known  to  them  as  a  pious 
belief  and  not  as  an  historic  fact. 

28.  Is  it  even  possible  to  extract  the  elements  of  a  biography 
of  Jesus  from  the  Gospels  .^  It  is  contrary  to  every  sound 
method  to  compose,  as  even  Renan  did,  a  life  of  Jesus, 
eliminating  the  marvellous  elements  of  the  Gospel  story.  It 
is  no  more  possible  to  make  real  history  with  myths  than  to 
make  bread  with  the  pollen  of  flowers.  The  historic  Jesus  is 
essentially  intangible,  by  which  I  do  not  mean  that  He  never 
existed,  but  simply  that  we  cannot  affirm  anything  precise 
about  Him,  lacking,  as  we  do,  all  evidence  incontestably  derived 
from  those  who  saw  and  heard  Him. 

•  •  ■  •  • 

29.  The  period  to  which  the  teaching  of  Jesus  must  be 
referred  is  fairly  well  known  to  us  by  the  works  of  secular 
writers;  now,  all  contemporary  authors  are  silent  concerning 
Him.  Josephus,  a  Jew  by  birth,  who  wrote  about  a.d.  80  and 
enters  into  details  concerning  the  histoiy  of  Palestine,  and  the 
Roman  procurator,  Pontius  Pilate,  mentions  John  the  Baptist, 
who  was  put  to  death  under  Herod  Antipas,  but  ignores  the 
preaching  of  Jesus.  This  silence  seemed  so  amazing  that  at  an 
early  date  a  passage  was  introduced  into  his  Jezvish  Antiquities 
(xviii.  3,  3),  the  apocryphal  character  of  which  is  obvious.  It  is 
very  doubtful  whether  any  fragment  of  it  should  be  retained  : 
"At  this  time  appeared  Jesus,  a  wise  man,  if  indeed  He  is  to  be 
called  a  man.  For  He  accomplished  marvellous  things,  Avas  the 
master  of  men  who  accept  truth  gladly,  and  drew  many  Jcavs 
and  also  many  Greeks  after  Him.  This  man  was  the  Christ. 
He  was  denounced  by  the  elders  of  our  nation  to  Pilate,  who 
condemned  Him  to  be  crucified;  but  those  who  had  loved 
Him  from  the  beginning  did  not  cease  to  revere  Him ;  for  He 

^  Loisy,  Quelques  Lettres,  p.  190. 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  15 

appeared  on  the  third  day,  risen  from  the  dead,  as  the  holy 
prophets  and  as  a  thousand  other  marvels  connected  with  Him 
had  foretold.  And  the  sect  which  received  the  name  of 
Christians  from  Him  still  exists."  If  the  Jew  Josephus  had 
written  this,  he  would  have  been  a  Christian  ;  and  as,  since  he 
was  a  Jew,  he  could  not  have  written  thus,  he  must  either  have 
said  nothing  of  Jesus  or  have  spoken  of  Him  in  hostile  terms 
which  Christian  copyists  suppressed.^ 

30.  Another  historian,  Justus  of  Tiberias,  who  wrote  at  the 
same  period,  and  whose  work  Photius  read  in  the  ninth  century, 
says  not  a  word  of  Jesus,  which  Photius  attributes  to  his 
"malevolence." 

31.  We  still  possess  the  considerable  works  of  Philo,  the 
Jewish  philosopher  of  Alexandria,  a  contemporary  of  Jesus, 
who  survived  Him.  Philo  never  heard  of  Jesus,  or  at  any  rate 
he  does  not  appear  to  have  done  so,  a  fact  which  the  proximity 
of  Jerusalem  and  Alexandria  makes  very  singular. 

32.  The  few  words  devoted  to  Jesus  in  the  Talmud  present 
insuperable  difficulties.  They  say,  notably,  that  Rabbi  Joshua 
ben  Perahyah  fled  to  Alexandria  with  his  pupil  Jesus  to  escape 
the  persecution  of  the  Jewish  king  Jannaeus  (103-76  b.c).  On 
his  return,  Jesus  founded  a  sect  of  apostate  Jews.  According 
to  this,  there  were  disciples  of  Jesus  nearly  a  century  before  the 
Christian  era !  How  are  we  to  explain  the  birth  of  such  a 
legend,  however  absurd,  if  the  preaching  of  Jesus,  at  the  period 
assigned  to  it,  had  left  any  definite  memories ':! 

33.  Suetonius,  speaking  of  the  events  of  the  year  52  a.d., 
says  that  Claudius  banished  the  Jews  from  Rome,  because  they 
were  perpetually  revolting  at  the  instigation  of  Christ  {impulsore 
Chresto).  He  may  have  referred  to  some  obscure  Jew  called 
Chrestus ;  but  even  if  he  meant  Jesus,  this  curt  allusion  tells  us 
nothing  of  import. 

34.  The  first  non-Christian  record  of  Jesus  occurs  in  the 
Annals  of  Tacitus  (xv.  44),  in  connection  with  the  Neronian 
persecution.      The  emperor  "inflicted  cruel  tortures  on   men 

*  A  German  historian  has  recently  suggested  (1921)  that  the  passage  in 
question,  reproducing  the  chief  tenets  of  Christianity,  was  inserted  by 
Josephus  himself  in  a  late  edition  of  his  work  in  order  to  appeal  to  a  new 
class  of  readers  (Christians  of  Jewish  descent). 


16      A  SHORT  HISTORY   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

hated  for  their  crimes,  called  by  the  vulgar  Christians.  Christ, 
from  whom  they  took  their  name,  had  been  put  to  death  under 
Tiberius  by  the  procurator  Pontius  Pilate.  Repressed  for  a 
time,  this  detestable  superstition  broke  out  again,  not  only  in 
Judaea,  the  fount  of  the  evil,  but  at  Rome,  whither  all  irregu- 
larities and  infamies  tend  to  gravitate."  The  authenticity  of 
these  lines  has  been  questioned,  but  quite  groundlessly.  How- 
ever, when  Tacitus  wrote  this  (117  a.d.),  there  were  Christians 
throughout  the  Empire ;  the  three  synoptical  Gospels  were  in 
existence,  and  perhaps  even  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Tacitus  knew — 
perhaps  through  his  friend  the  younger  Pliny — of  a  tradition 
concerning  the  death  of  Jesus ;  he  can  hardly  be  said  to 
confirm  it. 

35.  Jesus  is  alleged  to  have  been  crucified  under  Tiberius,  by 
order  of  Pontius  Pilate,  because  He  claimed  to  be  the  King  of 
the  Jews.  Tiberius  was  a  suspicious  sovereign,  who  insisted  on 
being  kept  informed  of  all  that  was  happening  in  his  Empire. 
For  instance,  he  ordered  an  inquiry  to  be  held  because  some 
sailors,  passing  along  the  coast  of  Greece,  thought  they  heard 
voices  crying  that  the  Great  Pan  was  dead.  Pontius  Pilate 
would  have  sent  Tiberius  a  report  on  the  death  of  Jesus,  if  only 
to  show  his  vigilance.  The  strongest  proof  of  the  non-existence 
of  this  report  is  the  fact  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century,  the  Christians  themselves  manufactured  one  which  is 
still  extant,  and  which  Justin  and  Tertullian  believed  to  be 
authentic ;  and  in  the  fourth  century  the  pagans  circulated 
another,  also  a  forgery,  which  Eusebius  read. 

36.  Do  we  know  anything  definite  as  to  the  date  of  Christ's 
birth  and  activity  ?  Matthew  places  His  birth  in  the  reign  of 
Herod,  that  is  to  say,  at  latest  in  the  year  4  b.c.  ;  Luke  dates 
it  at  the  time  of  a  census  which  took  place  ten  years  after,  in 
the  year  6  a.d.  The  same  Luke  says  Jesus  was  thirty  in  the 
fifteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  the  year  29  of  our  era, 
the  date  to  which  he  assigns  the  baptism  of  Jesus  by  St.  John ; 
but  Luke  seems  to  have  taken  this  date  from  a  passage  in 
Josephus  (which  speaks  of  the  death  of  John  the  Baptist  in 
connection  with  an  event  of  the  year  36)  and  to  have  allowed 
for  an  interval  of  seven  years  between  the  preaching  of  John 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  17 

the  Baptist  and  the  incident  in  question.  Luke  makes  the 
ministry  of  Jesus  last  only  a  year  and  a  half,  whereas,  according 
to  John,  it  lasted  three  and  a  half  years.  Luke  recounts  an 
episode  in  the  childhood  of  Jesus,  whereas  the  other  evangelists 
seem  to  have  known  nothing  of  this  period  of  His  life.  John 
makes  the  Jews  say  to  Jesus,  "  thou  art  not  yet  fifty  years  old," 
from  which  the  early  Church  inferred  that  He  was  about  forty- 
nine  at  his  death  ;  but  in  this  case,  if  He  was  born  in  the  year 
4  B.C.,  He  must  have  died  in  a.d.  45,  not  under  Tiberius,  but 
under  Claudius,  and,  indeed,  the  forged  report  of  Pilate  fabricated 
by  the  Christians  is  addressed  to  Claudius.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  Jesus  was  born  in  the  year  of  the  census  (the  year  6  a.d.), 
and  lived  forty-nine  years.  He  died  in  55,  and  this  opinion  was 
stoutly  upheld  by  certain  Christians  of  Jerusalem.  Finally, 
Eusebius  mentions  another  false  report  ascribed  to  Pilate, 
according  to  which  Jesus  was  crucified  in  a.d.  21,  which,  remarks 
Eusebius,  is  impossible,  as  we  know  from  Josephus  that  Pilate 
was  not  procurator  at  this  period.  Thus  we  see  that  even  the 
fact  of  the  condemnation  of  Jesus  under  Pilate  is  not  established, 
though  the  earliest  Christian  credo  (a.d.  100)  rather  suspiciously 
insists  upon  it  (I  believe  in  God  ,  .  .  and  in  Christ  Jesus  .  .  . 
crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate  .  .  .).  Why  emphasise  this  if 
there  were  no  doubt  about  it  ?  That  Pilate  correctly  appears 
escorted  by  Annas  and  Caiaphas  in  Luke's  Gospel  proves  only 
one  thing,  namely,  that  Luke  had  read  Josephus,  or  one  of  his 
authorities.  To  sum  up,  we  find  that  less  than  a  century  after 
the  Christian  era,  which  tradition  places  four  years  after  the 
birth  of  Jesus,  no  one  knew  precisely  when  He  was  born,  when 
He  taught,  or  when  He  died. 

37.  Did  any  one  know  with  certainty  how  Jesus  was 
arrested,  judged  and  put  to  death.?  The  accounts  of  the 
Passion  in  the  Gospels  inspire  confidence  by  their  precision ; 
but  this  impression  is  not  proof  against  careful  examination. 
In  the  first  place,  these  accounts  show  a  bias;  they  try  to 
exonerate  the  Roman  governor  and  to  inculpate  the  Jews,  which 
is  comprehensible  enough  at  a  period  when  the  Church,  turning 
her  back  upon  the  Jews,  was  appealing  to  the  Gentiles,  but  is 
inconsistent  with  history.    The  weak  Pilate  of  the  Gospels,  who 


18       A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

allows  himself  to  be  swayed  by  the  mob,  gives  it  a  choice 
between  Jesus  and  Barabbas,  washes  his  hands  of  the  blood  he 
is  about  to  shed  (a  non-Roman  custom),  is  a  romantic  figure 
quite  unlike  the  real,  harsh  Pilate  described  by  Josephus  and 
Philo.  In  the  second  place,  the  date  of  Jesus'  death  on  the 
eve  or  day  of  the  Passover  is  inadmissible ;  the  evident  reason 
for  assigning  it  to  this  date  was  to  connect  it  with  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Pascal  lamb.  But  we  must  also  dwell  on  some 
further  difficulties  involved  in  the  Gospel  narrative  of  the 
Passion. 

38.  Judas  of  Kerioth,  the  traitor  Apostle,  is  said  to  have 
shown  his  master  to  the  soldiers  who  came  to  arrest  Him.  But 
as  Jesus  had  just  made  a  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem  and 
was  not  in  hiding,  there  was  no  necessity  for  a  traitor  to  reveal 
His  presence.  After  the  death  of  Jesus,  remorseful  Judas  would 
not  keep  the  money  he  had  received  and  hurled  it  into  the 
sanctuary ;  the  priests  used  it  to  purchase  the  potter's  field, 
henceforth  called  Aceldama,  the  field  of  blood.  According  to 
the  Acts,  Judas  bought  that  field  himself  and  died  there  a 
miserable  death.  Now,  there  are  verses  in  the  Psalms  (xli.  9  i 
Iv.  12)  mentioning  the  ill-treatment  of  the  Righteous  One  by 
a  "familiar  friend";  there  is  a  passage  in  Zechariah  (xi.  12, 
13) :  "  So  they  weighed  for  my  price  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  and 
the  Lord  said  to  me :  Cast  it  unto  the  potter  .  .  .  And  I  took 
the  thirty  pieces  of  silver  and  cast  them  to  the  potter  in  the 
house  of  the  Lord."  Whatever  that  may  mean,  it  is  the  origin 
of  the  legend,  as  proved  by  Acts  i.  16 :  "  This  scripture  must 
needs  have  been  fulfilled,  which  the  Holy  Ghost  by  the  mouth 
of  David  spake  before  concerning  Judas,  which  was  guide  to 
them  that  took  Jesus."  So  the  story  of  Judas  is  founded  on 
prophecy,  not  on  fact. 

39.  The  current  belief  that  the  Roman  governor  merely 
ratified  a  sentence  pronounced  by  a  Jewish  tribunal  is  manifestly 
absurd.  The  Gospel  narrative  combines  two  traditions,  one 
attributing  the  sentence  to  the  Romans,  the  other  (probably 
more  recent)  to  the  Jews.  But  if  the  Jews  had  condemned 
Jesus,  He  would  have  been  stoned,  crucifixion  being  unknown 
to  Hebrew  law.     Now  if  Pilate  caused  a  freeman  to  be  scourged 


CHRISTIAN  ORIGINS  19 

and  crucified,  he  must  have  had  for  that  some  more  serious 
reason  than  the  alleged  pretence  of  Jesus  to  Messiahship,  a 
thing  that  was  of  no  concern  to  him.  Was  then  Jesus  con- 
sidered a  disturber  of  the  peace,  claiming  some  sort  of  temporal 
power  ?  There  is  no  trace  whatever  of  this  in  the  Gospels. 
The  more  we  admit  that  the  teaching  and  conduct  of  Jesus 
constituted  a  menace  to  Roman  rule,  the  less  do  we  understand 
the  silence  of  contemporary  historians.  The  Crucifixion  remains 
a  tragedy  without  a  cause. 

40.  Nor  can  the  episode  of  Barabbas  be  historic.  We  are 
told  that  the  Roman  governor  was  in  the  habit  of  releasing  a 
prisoner  on  Easter  Eve.  He  had  a  prisoner  named  Barabbas, 
who  had  taken  part  in  some  insurrection  and  committed  a 
murder.  (Neither  the  custom  nor  the  revolt  is  mentioned 
elsewhere.)  The  governor  proposes  to  set  Jesus  free,  but  the 
mob  refuses  Him  and  clamours  for  Barabbas,  who  is  released. 
But  how  could  a  Roman  governor  have  been  induced  by  a 
Jewish  mob  to  liberate  a  rebel  and  murderer  who  found 
suspicious  favour  with  that  mob  ? 

The  name  of  Barabbas  has  lent  itself  to  ingenious  hypo- 
theses. We  know  from  Philo  that  the  populace  of  Alexandria, 
wishing  to  deride  the  petty  Jewish  King  Agrippa,  treated  as  a 
mock-king  a  fool  called  Karahas.  That  name  being  meaning- 
less. Sir  G.  Frazer  once  proposed  to  read  Barabbas,  in  Aramaic 
"the  son  of  the  father."  Moreover,  we  learn  that  about  the 
year  250  Origen  read  in  a  very  old  copy  of  St.  Matthew's 
Gospel  that  Barabbas  was  called  Jesus  Barabbas.  So  it  might 
be  that  Jesus  was  put  to  death,  not  instead  of  Barabbas,  but  hi 
the  character  of  a  Barabbas,  as  an  expiatory  victim,  the  son 
paying  for  the  father.  But  this  is  very  uncertain  and,  till  new 
evidence  be  forthcoming,  must  be  merely  noted. 

41.  Far  greater  importance  attaches  to  texts  concerning  the 
Babylonian  and  Persian  feast  of  the  Sacsea,  and  also  the  Roman 
Saturnalia.  At  the  Sacasa,  there  was  a  triumphal  procession  of 
a  condemned  criminal  dressed  as  a  king,  who,  at  the  end  of  the 
festival,  was  stripped  of  his  finery,  scourged,  hanged  or  crucified. 
About  300  A.D.,  at  Durostolum  on  the  Danube,  the  Roman 
garrison,  thirty  days  before  the   Saturnalia,  elected  by  lot   a 


20      A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

mock-king  identified  with   the    king   and   god   Saturnus,   who 
enjoyed   royal   honours   and   privileges,  some   of  them  of  an 
immoral  character,  during  those  thirty  days;  after  which  he 
was  compelled  to  kill  himself  on  the  altar  of  the  king-god  whom 
he   impersonated.     A    Christian    soldier,  Dasius,  having   been 
elected,  refused  to  comply  with  the  indecent  practices  usual  at 
the  feast  and  was  put  to  death.     Now,  such  a  savage  ritual 
must  have  been  very  old  ;  compared  with  that  of  the  Sacasa, 
which  is,  of  course,  independent  of  it,  it  leads  us  to  admit  that 
in    certain    popular   cults,   founded    perhaps   on    totemism    or 
agrarian  rites,  a  man  was    made  to   impersonate  a  king-god, 
treated  in  derision  as  such  and  finally  slain.     Tlie  story  of  the 
mocking  and  scourging  of  Jesus  (Matt,  xxvii.  26-31)  is  indeed  so 
similar   to   the  ritual  of  the  Sacaea  and  Saturnalia  that  the 
parallelism    cannot   be   accidental.      So  we   are   at   first   sight 
tempted  to  conclude  that  Pilate  abandoned  Jesus  to  the  Roman 
soldiers  that  they  might  treat  Him  as  a  mock-king,  though  the 
season  was  not  that  of  the  Saturnalia.     If  that  were  the  case, 
the  story  given  in  the  Gospels  should  be  considered  as  demon- 
strably true ;  the  writers,  though  unacquainted  with  the  pagan 
ritual,  produced  a  narrative  that  conformed  to  it,  simply  by 
stating  the  facts  as  they  occurred.     But  serious  arguments  can 
be  brought  against  such  a  conclusion  which,  if  verified,  would 
mean  a  triumph  for  the  orthodox  view.     There  is  no  trace  of 
revelry,  an  element  not  to  be  omitted  in  the  honours  rendered 
by  soldiers  to  a  mock-king.    The  Roman  governor,  in  a  country 
seething  with  rebellion,  could  not  possibly  have  authorised  his 
guards  to  treat  a  rebel  as  a  king ;  such  laxity,  in  the  reign  of 
Tiberius,   would   have   cost   him   dear.      On    the   other   hand, 
supposing  the  first  writer  who  related  the  death  of  Jesus  had 
lacked  information  on  that  subject,  it  is  natural  enough  that  he 
should   have  taken  as  a  model   some  very  old  Asiatic  ritual 
according   to  which   a   god-king  was   reverenced,  derided,  ill- 
treated    and    finally    put    to   death.      The    lack    of    evidence 
concerning  the  ritual  invites  us  to  caution ;  but  J.  J.  Rousseau 
was  perhaps  nearer  the  truth  than  he  himself  supposed  when  he 
wrote  :  "  If  the  death  of  Socrates  is  that  of  a  sage,  the  death  of 
Jesus  is  that  of  a  god." 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  21 

42.  What  bearing  on  these  questions  have  the  Docetes,i  the 
most  ancient  Christian  heretics,  who  contended  that  Jesus  had 
been  but  a  phantom,  that  He  had  only  assumed  the  semblance  of 
a  body — and  this,  exclaims  St.  Jerome,  when  the  blood  of  Jesus 
was  not  yet  dry  in  Judaea  ?  The  great  antiquity  of  the  sect  is 
confirmed  by  two  letters  attributed  to  St.  John,  which  are 
partly  directed  against  Docetism,  and  perhaps  also  by  the 
passage  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  (xx.  24)  concerning  the  incredulity 
of  St.  Thomas.  Works  by  Docetes  have  not  come  down  to  us 
and  we  have  no  adequate  knowledge  of  their  tenets.  One  thing, 
however,  is  certain :  the  so-called  extreme  Docetes  denied  the 
Crucifixion.  Irenasus  (c.  180  a.d.)  says  that  the  heretic  Basilides 
(c.  125)  related  the  Crucifixion  as  follows :  Simon  of  Cyrene  was 
crucified  by  mistake  "and  Jesus  himself  took  the  form  of 
Simon,  and  stood  by  and  laughed  at  the  executioners."  Foolish 
as  this  may  be,  how  could  a  fact  be  so  ludicrously  denied,  if  it 
had  been  historically  ascertained  ? 

43.  A  keen  adversary  of  the  Docetes,  St.  Ignatius,  Bishop  of 
Antioch,  writing  about  110,  says  that  the  birth  and  death  of 
Jesus  were  unknown  to  Satan,  the  Prince  of  the  world ;  he  also 
speaks  of  certain  persons  who  declared  :  "  What  we  do  not  find 
in  the  archives  we  cannot  accept  in  the  Gospel."  Efforts  have 
been  made  to  twist  these  texts,  which  are  undoubtedly  very  odd, 
but  must  be  taken  as  they  stand  and  interpreted  honestly. 
They  seem  to  show  that  the  Bishop  of  Antioch  had  to  contend 
with  unbelievers  inspired  by  the  Devil,  who  stated  that  they 
could  find  no  evidences  of  the  birth  and  death  of  Jesus  in  the 
public  archives  (of  Caesarea  ?).  Ignatius  answered  them  only 
with  pious  phrases  ;  after  him,  from  the  first  half  of  the  second 
century,  forgeries  were  concocted  to  refute  them. 

44.  St.  Paul  preached  "  Christ  crucified,"  not  Gospel  history. 
He  talked  with  men  who  had  lived  with  Jesus,  like  Peter  and 
James ;  but  their  recollections  of  the  earthly  life  of  the  master 
do  not  seem  to  have  interested  him.  In  his  Epistles  to  distant 
communities  he  hardly  says  anything  about  Jesus,  but  dwells 
on  Christ.  We  may  nevertheless  assert  that  the  Epistles  of 
Paul  are  the  best   historical  evidence  we  possess  relating   to 

^  From  Greek  dolccin,  to  appear. 


22      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Jesus,  so  far  do  all  the  rest  fall  short  of  the  demands  of  criticism. 
If  these  Epistles  were  not  by  St.  Paul,  or  if  the  decisive  passages 
in  them  were  spurious — of  which  we  have,  so  far,  no  proof  at 
all — it  would  almost  be  a  pardonable  paradox  to  doubt  the 
historical  existence  of  Jesus.^  All  we  can  safely  say  is,  that  if 
historical  facts  are  imbedded  in  the  Gospel  narrative,  they  are 
so  overlaid  with  legend  that  it  is  impossible  to  extract  from 
them  the  elements  of  a  scientific  biography. 

•  *  •  •  • 

45.  Many  events  in  the  life  of  Jesus  are  related  in  the 
Gospels  with  the  comment  that  they  were  fulfilments  of 
prophecy.  The  text  quoted  in  the  Gospels  is  the  Greek  version 
of  the  Old  Testament,  the  mistakes  of  which  are  accepted  and 
occasionally  aggravated.  Jesus  was  born  of  a  "  virgin,"  because 
Isaiah  was  supposed  to  have  said  that  "  a  virgin "  would 
conceive;  in  the  Hebrew  text,  he  says  "a  woman,"  the  wife  of 
some  Jewish  king  or  prophet.  Jesus  is  said  to  be  "  of  Nazareth,"" 
because  a  prophet  foretold  that  the  Messiah  should  be  a 
Nazarene  (Matt.  ii.  23) ;  but  Isaiah,  who  is  invoked  in  this 
connection,  said  nothing  of  the  sort.  A  Nazarenos  or  Nazormos 
was  a  man  belonging  to  a  holy  community  of  Baptists,  from  the 
Semitic  root  ns'r,  meaning  "to  protect,"  which  still  survives  in 
the  names  of  Syrian  sects  called  Ncisoraje  (Mandjeans)  and 
Nos'air'i.  Jesus  was  called  Nazarenus  for  some  such  reason 
which  the  Gospel  writers  did  not  understand ;  so  they  invented 
the  village  of  Nazareth,  which  appears  in  no  text  before  the 
Christian  era.  Jesus  was  born  at  Bethlehem  because  Micah  (v.  2) 
had  foretold  that  the  Messiah  would  come  from  that  place.  He 
was  taken  by  His  parents  into  Egypt  because  Hosea  wrote : 
"  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  Son.'''  All  these  coincidences 
which  seemed  formerly  not  only  to  attest  the  veracity  of  the 
Gospel  narrative,  but  the  superhuman  character  of  the  facts  set 

^  Apart  from  the  mysterious  passage  in  Ignatius  (§  43),  there  is  no  trace 
of  this  paradox  till  the  eighteenth  century,  when  it  seems  to  have  been  current 
in  Bolingbroke's  circle.  Voltaire  censured  it,  but  not  Volney  and  Dupu}'. 
This  explains  why  Napoleon,  meeting  Wieland  in  1808,  asked  him  if  he 
believed  in  the  existence  of  Jesus.  The  same  theory  was  iiropounded  by  the 
Uerman  critic  Bruno  Bauer  (1842),  who  attributed  the  whole  Gospel  history 
to  one  foi'ger,  and,  more  recently,  by  manj^  writers,  Robertson,  Benj.  Smith, 
Drews,  &c.  But  their  wild  hypotheses  to  account  for  the  origin  of  the 
"myth  of  Christ"  have  failed  hitherto  to  convince  competent  scholars. 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  23 

forth  in  it,  now  furnish  irrefragable  proof  of  their  uncertainty. 
It  sometimes  seems  as  if  a  Greek  writer,  who  knew  nothino;  of 
Jesus,  save  that  He  was  the  Messiah,  had  taken  the  chief 
elements  of  His  biography  from  the  Old  Testament  by  torturing 
the  texts  then  considered  as  Messianic.  But  there  is  more  than 
this.  In  Isaiah  (1.  6),  the  Righteous  servant  gives  his  back  to 
the  smiters ;  he  hides  not  his  face  from  shame  and  spitting ; 
later  on  (liii.  3-12),  he  is  a  man  of  sorrows,  bearing  our  griefs, 
bruised  for  our  iniquities,  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter, 
numbered  with  the  transgressors,  cut  off  out  of  the  land  of  the 
living,  "and  he  made  his  grave  with  the  wicked  and  with  the 
rich  in  his  death  .  .  . ;  yet  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  bruise  him." 
Here  we  have  strange  sayings  which,  like  the  famous  passage  in 
Plato's  Republic,^  may  be  derived  from  some  myth  of  the 
suffering  Saviour  and  which  were  evidently  seized  upon  to 
compose  the  story  of  the  Passion  and  Entombment.  In 
Psalm  xxii.  the  Righteous  complains  that  his  enemies  have  cast 
lots  for  his  vesture,  a  detail  which  has  found  a  place  in  the 
account  of  the  Passion,  where  it  is  introduced  to  "fulfil"  the 
prophecy.  But  the  Righteous  servant  also  says  :  "  They  pierced 
my  hands  and  my  feet,"  i.  c.  they  crucified  me.  Unless  we  use 
two  kinds  of  weights  and  measures,  we  must  admit  that  this 
verse  of  the  Psalm  (xxii.  16)  may  be  the  origin  of  the  tradition 
which  declares  that  Jesus  was  crucified.  If  we  do  not  admit  it, 
we  come  very  near  to  believing  in  prophecy.  What  then,  after 
all  we  have  said,  remains  unquestioned  of  the  Gospel  story, 
from  the  stable  at  Bethlehem  to  the  Cross  of  Golgotha  ? 

46.  Christianity  remains,  which  is  not  only  a  great  institu- 
tion, but  the  mightiest  spiritual  force  which  has  ever  transformed 
sovils,  a  force  which  continues  to  evolve  in  them.  Its  influence  is 
due  partly  to  the  beauty,  now  idyllic,  now  tragic,  of  the  legend, 
but  still  more  to  what  is  called  the  morality  of  the  Gospel,  as 
revealed  in  the  parables  and  sayings  attributed  to  Jesus.  "  The 
spirit  of  the  Gospel,"  as  Abbe  Loisy  aptly  says,^  "  is  the  highest 

1  Plato,  RepuUic,  II.  p.  362  A.  (H.  Spens'  transl.,  p.  42) :  "The  just  man 
will  be  scourged,  tormented,  fettered,  have  his  eyes  burn  and  lastly,  haying 
suffered  all  manners  of  evils,  will  be  cruciiied."  Unless  it  alluded  to  some- 
thing of  which  we  are  ignorant  this  passage  would  be  utterly  absurd. 

-  Loisy,  QueUiues  Lettres,  p.  71. 


24      A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

manifestation  of  the  human  conscience  seeking  happiness  in 
justice."  It  is  true  that  Christian  moraHty  is  no  more  original 
than  is  any  other  morality,  religious  or  secular  ;  it  is  that  of  the 
contemporary  Jewish  schoolmen,  of  a  Hillel  or  a  Gamaliel ;  but 
in  the  Gospels  it  appears  divested  of  all  scholasticism  and 
ritualistic  pedantry,  robust  and  simple  as  befits  a  doctrine 
setting  forth  to  conquer  the  world.  It  is  the  morality  of  the 
school  without  the  school,  purified  and  distilled  in  ardent  souls, 
with  all  the  charm  and  all  the  persuasive  force  of  popular 
conceptions.  It  is  not  social;  it  neglects  the  duties  of  man  to 
the  city,  because  it  invites  to  perfection,  to  individual  purity,  in 
view  of  the  Advent  of  the  Lord  and  the  Judgment,  which  were 
considered  imminent  even  by  St.  Paul ;  but  it  prepares  man  to 
carry  out  his  social  duties  by  condemning  hatred  and  violence, 
and  enjoining  fraternity.  It  is  absurd  to  say  that  this  morality 
is  against  nature ;  so  is  kindness.  But  Christian  morality  was 
only  the  ideal  rule  of  conduct  of  Christendom,  a  rule  always 
preached,  but  rarely  obeyed,  even  by  those  who  preached  it. 
Pity  that  St.  Paul  superimposed  on  these  mild  ethics  the  harsh 
doctrine  of  original  sin,  redemption  and  grace,  which  gave  birth 
to  eighteen  centuries  of  arid  disputation  and  still  weighs  like  a 
nightmare  on  humanity ! 

•  •  •  »  • 

47.  The  so-called  apocryphal  Gospels  are  of  two  kinds ; 
the  one  class,  described  as  dogmatic,  relates  the  whole  life  of 
Jesus,  after  the  manner  of  the  Synoptists ;  the  others,  known 
as  legendary,  deal  only  with  episodes.  The  former,  which  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church  in  the  third  century  frequently  quote  as 
if  they  were  of  equal  authority  with  the  canonical  writings, 
were  destroyed,  no  doubt  deliberately,  because  they  belonged  to 
schismatic  sects.  But  in  1886  a  portion  of  the  Gospel  of  St. 
Peter,  comprising  the  Passion  and  Resurrection,  was  found  in  a 
tomb  in  Egypt.  This  Gospel  was  probably  identical  with  that 
of  the  Egyptians,  which  the  Fathers  quoted,  and  of  which  they 
have  preserved  extracts ;  it  was  no  doubt  written  in  Egypt, 
probably  at  Babylon  (ancient  Cairo).  We  have  also  some 
fragments  of  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  the  loss  of 
which  is  especially  to  be  regretted,  because  it  was  written  for 


CHRISTIAN  ORIGINS  25 

the  Judseo-Chri'stian  communities  of  Palestine.  The  episode  of 
Jesus  and  the  woman  taken  in  adultery,  which  was  inserted  in 
St.  John's  Gospel  in  the  fourth  century,  Avas  originally  in  this 
(lospel.  It  should,  no  doubt,  be  distinguished  from  that  of 
the  Ebionites  {Ebionim,  the  poor),  a  Jewish  sect  anterior  to 
Christianity,  which  developed  a  gnostic  doctrine.  A  con- 
temporary of  St.  John,  Cerinthus,  of  whom  we  know  hardly 
anything,  was  supposed  to  be  the  author  of  one  Gospel ;  at  a 
very  early  period  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  was  attributed  to  him 
and  alleged  to  be  a  revised  version  of  his  Gospel. 

48.  The  legendary  Gospels  which  have  come  down  to  us  are 
expurgated  gnostic  writings ;  all  that  has  been  left  in  them  are 
absurdities  which  are  inoffensive  to  dogma,  though  singularly 
repugnant  to  taste.  In  the  Gospel  of  the  Childhood,  or  of  St. 
Thomas,  Jesus  is  a  malicious  and  vindictive  little  demon ;  the 
miracles  of  the  apocryphal  Gospels  are  worthy  of  the  Arabian 
Nights.  The  result  of  the  toleration  shown  by  the  Church  for 
these  legends  was  that  they  were  widely  circulated  and  translated 
into  every  language ;  literature  and  art  found  inspiration  in 
them.  Many  popular  incidents  of  Gospel  history  have  no 
authority  but  that  of  the  apocryphal  writers ;  such  are  the 
story  of  Joachim  and  Anna,  the  parents  of  the  Virgin,  that  of 
her  marriage,  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  in  a  cave,  where  he  was 
worshipped  by  an  ox  and  an  ass,  of  the  descent  of  Jesus  into 
hell,i  and  of  the  death  or  trance  of  the  Virgin. 

49.  In  addition  to  these  texts  we  have  a  considerable 
collection  of  sayings  (in  Greek  hgia)  attributed  to  Jesus,  some 
reported  by  writers  of  the  first  century,  others  forming  little 
collections  which  have  been  discovered  in  Egypt  in  our  own 
days.  The  grains  of  gold  in  this  Gospel  dust  are  rare  ;  there  is 
indeed  one  very  long  sentence  attributed  to  Jesus  and  recorded 
by  Papias,  which  is  nothing  but  an  absurdity  from  beginning 
to  end.  Our  Evangelists  made  a  very  happy  choice  among  the 
confused  elements  of  tradition  ;  to  appreciate  their  taste,  we 
have  only  to  read  the  apocryphal  Gospels. 

50.  The  older  parts  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  are  by  the 

^  The  descent  into  hell,    to   which   the  First  Epistle  of  Peter  alludes 
(iii.  18),  has  been  generally  accepted  since  the  fourth  century. 


26      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

same  author  as  our  Third  Gospel ;  they  must  have  been  written 
about  80  A.D.,  probably  in  Rome.  The  compilation  as  we  have 
it  contains  some  precious  information  concerning  a  portion  of 
St.  Paul's  journeys,  taken  apparently  from  an  authentic  journal 
of  Luke's ;  these  elements  are  distinguished  from  the  rest  by 
the  use  of  the  word  "we"  in  the  narrative.  The  remainder, 
grossly  interpolated  and  altered,  is  very  unequal  in  value,  and 
cannot  be  attributed  to  a  disciple  of  Paul's,  whose  Epistles  and 
whose  individual  doctrine  it  completely  ignores.  The  rivalry 
of  Peter  and  Paul  is  intentionally  modified,  in  a  spirit  of 
conciliation ;  but  this  conciliation  is  a  growth  of  theology,  not 
of  history.  The  Paul  of  the  Epistles  is  a  very  different  man 
from  the  Paul  of  the  Acts.  A  Swiss  theologian,  in  1841,  sup- 
posed that  the  real  object  of  the  Acts  was  to  show  that  there 
was  no  cause  of  conflict  between  Christianity  and  the  Roman 
State,  a  theory  that  has  been  cleverly  developed  by  Loisy 
(1920)  in  an  epoch-making  work. 

51.  We  have  further  a  whole  collection  of  apocryphal  Acts 
of  various  Apostles,  Peter,  Paul,  Thomas,  John,  Andrew,  and 
Philip.  They  are  romances  full  of  marvels,  amusing  enough  to 
read,  in  which  certain  precise  details  attest  a  good  knowledge 
of  history  and  geography.  These  texts,  which  have  come  down 
to  us  in  different  languages,  seem  to  have  been  derived  from 
expurgated  editions  of  gnostic  works.  The  Church  permitted 
them  to  be  read  on  the  same  terms  as  the  apocryphal  Gospels, 
but  merely  as  a  matter  of  curiosity. 

The  most  attractive  of  these  stories  is  that  of  Thekla. 
This  maiden,  a  member  of  a  good  family  at  Iconium,  was 
converted  by  the  teaching  of  Paul,  baptised  herself,  braved 
all  sorts  of  dangers,  and  ended  by  preaching  Christianity  at 
Seleucia.  Tertullian  tells  us  (c.  200)  that  this  story  was 
fabricated  by  an  elder  of  Asia  Minor,  who,  when  convicted 
of  the  fraud,  confessed  that  he  had  perpetrated  it  "for  love 
of  St.  Paul."  1  There  is,  however,  something  suspicious  in  the 
alleged  confession,  intended  to  discredit  a  very  ancient  narrative 
which  introduces  a  girl  preaching  and  baptising,  contrary  to 
the    tenets  of    the    Church.       St.    Paul's   distrustful   attitude 

^  Tertullian,  De  Bavtismo,  17. 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  27 

towards  women  may  possibly  be  due  to  impatience  with  the 
youthful  presumption  of  his  convert. 

■  •  ■  •  • 

52.  The  Canon  of  the  Church  accepts  fourteen  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul,  one  to  the  Romans,  two  to  the  Corinthians,  one  to  the 
Galatians,  the  Ephesians,  the  Philippians,  the  Colossians,  two  to 
the  Thessalonians  and  Timothy,  one  to  Titus,  one  to  Philemon, 
one  to  the  Hebrews.  A  school  of  criticism  which  sprang  up  in 
Holland  about  1885  denies  the  authenticity  of  all  these  writings. 
Its  principal  argument  is  that  in  the  communities  Paul  is 
supposed  to  address  a  complexity  and  intensity  of  religious 
life  is  implied  which  is  inadmissible  at  the  period.  But  what 
do  we  know  of  the  primitive  history  of  these  communities  ? 
All  that  can  be  conceded  is  that  the  whole  of  St.  Paul's 
Epistles  have  not  come  down  to  us  as  he  wrote  them. 

53.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  a  theological  dissertation 
on  the  relations  of  the  Law  and  the  Gospels.  Its  attribution 
to  St.  Paul  is  purely  hypothetical.  Tertullian  ascribed  it  to 
Barnabas,  the  companion  of  Paul,  and  Origen  confessed  that 
the  author  was  not  known.  But  it  is  an  ancient  composition, 
probably  a  little  anterior  to  the  year  70  a.d. 

54.  The  Epistle  to  Titus  and  the  two  Epistles  to  Timothy 
are  generally  known  by  the  name  of  Pastoral  Epistles,  because 
they  are  addressed  to  pastors  of  the  Church.  The  attribution 
of  the  Pastorals  to  St.  Paul  has  been  strenuously  contested,  yet 
the  spirit  which  animates  them  is  certainly  that  of  the  Apostle  ; 
they  are  at  least  documents  emanating  from  his  school,  if  indeed 
they  are  not  modified  versions  of  authentic  letters. 

55.  The  Epistle  to  Philemon  is  unimportant.  The  second 
Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians  seems  to  have  been  recast.  The 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians  cannot  be  separated  from  the  Epistle 
to  the  Ephesians.  At  the  time  of  Marcion  (a.d.  150),  the 
latter  was  superscribed  "  to  the  Laodiceans,"  who  were  no  doubt 
the  original  recipients.  There  are  reasons  for  contesting  its 
authenticity.  The  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  implies  a  state 
of  organisation  in  the  Church  which  is  not  borne  out  by  St. 
Paul's  other  writings  ;  but  good  judges  believe  it  to  be  genuine. 

56.  The  four  great  Epistles,  to  the  Romans,  the  Corinthians 


28      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

(1  and  2)  and  to  the  Galatians  are  the  most  important  monu- 
ments of  that  Pauline  doctrine  which  the  Apostle  himself, 
quoting  the  Greeks,  called  the  "  foolishness "  of  the  Cross 
(1  Cor.  i.  18-23).  They  are  difficult  texts,  so  rugged  in  style 
and  capricious  in  composition,  that  they  make  us  wonder  how 
the  recipients  can  have  understood  them.  At  one  point 
Paul  rises  to  great  heights  in  an  eloquent  passage  on  charity 
(1  Cor.  xiii.)  in  the  midst  of  an  exhortation  to  purity  of  life; 
here  and  there  his  atrabilious  genius  suggests  to  him  observa- 
tions of  the  profoundest  psychology,  verbal  felicities  worthy  of 
the  greatest  writers.  But  generally  speaking  his  thought  seems 
to  elude  us  just  as  we  are  about  to  grasp  it ;  this  Jew,  though 
he  wrote  in  Greek,  had  retained  a  purely  Oriental  method  of 
expression.  If  we  read  the  Epistles  without  a  commentary, 
we  are  in  peril  of  a  good  deal  of  lost  labour  and  of  ultimate 
bewilderment. 

57.  A  vast  literature  has  grown  up  round  these  Epistles. 
When  minutely  studied,  they  seem  to  reflect  the  evolution  of 
St.  Paul's  thought,  as  it  gradually  diverged  from  Judaism 
under  Greek-Asiatic  influences,  not  literary,  but  popular  and 
mystical.  St.  Paul  teaches  that  sin  and  death  came  into  the 
world  by  Adam  (whom  Jesus  never  mentioned),  and  that  Christ 
came  to  redeem  mankind  by  His  voluntary  oblation  of  Himself. 
Jesus  was  the  visible  image  of  the  invisible  God ;  He  was  the 
Son  of  God,  although  of  human  birth  (Paul  knew  nothing  of 
the  miraculous  affiliation).  The  death  of  Jesus  connoted  that 
of  sin  ;  the  new  life,  heralded  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  was 
to  be  the  reign  of  holiness.  In  due  time  the  faithful  would  be 
caught  up  into  heaven  with  the  Lord ;  then  the  dead  would 
arise  and  would  be  judged  according  to  their  deserts.  Baptism 
and  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  are  essential  to  salvation ;  the  works 
prescribed  by  the  Law  of  Moses  are  not  enough,  for  Jesus  has 
redeemed  us  fi'om  the  curse  of  the  Law.  But  faith  is  not 
within  reach  of  every  man.  God  chooses  his  elect  as  seems 
good  to  him.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  predestination  by  grace, 
which,  however,  St.  Paul  has  not  very  clearly  formulated  (see 
Rom.  ix.  11  and  xi.  5). 

68.  Ever  since  St.  Paul,  the  ruling  idea  of  Christianity  has 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  29 

been  that  of  the  redemption  of  man,  guilty  of  a  prehistoric 
fault,  by  the  voluntary  sacrifice  of  a  superman.  This  doctrine 
is  founded  upon  that  of  expiation — a  guilty  person  must  suffer 
to  atone  for  his  fault — and  that  of  the  substitution  of  victims — 
the  efficacious  suffering  of  an  innocent  person  for  a  guilty  one. 
Both  are  at  once  pagan  and  Jewish  ideas ;  they  belong  to  the 
old  fundamental  errors  of  humanity.  Yet  Plato  knew  that  the 
punishment  inflicted  on  a  guilty  person  is  not,  or  should  not  be 
a  vengeance :  it  is  a  painful  remedy  imposed  on  him  for  his  own 
benefit  and  that  of  society.  At  about  the  same  period,  Athenian 
law  laid  down  the  principle  that  punishment  should  be  as 
personal  as  the  fault.  Thus  St.  Paul  founded  Christian  theology 
on  two  archaic  ideas  which  had  already  been  condemned  by 
enlightened  Athenians  of  the  fourth  century  before  our  era, 
ideas  which  no  one  would  dream  of  upholding  in  these  days, 
though  the  structure  built  upon  them  still  subsists. 

59.  In  practice,  Paul  did  not  forget  that  he  was  addressing 
Jewish    communities    which    already    included    many   baptised 
pagans.     The  faithful  are  enjoined  not  to  hold  aloof  from  the 
Gentiles,  but  only  from   their  sacrifices  and  impurities ;    they 
may  disregard  the  alimentary  restrictions  of  the  Law.     "  Give 
none  offence,  neither  to  the  Jews,  nor  to  the  Gentiles,  nor  to  the 
Church  of  God"  (1   Cor.   x.   32).     The  virtue  he  enjoins  is, 
in   the  main,  of  no  very  exalted  order ;    there  is  a   Pauline 
opportunism.      Such  is  his   theory  of  marriage ;    it  is  better 
to  remain  celibate,  but  he  who  marries  does  well ;  a  widow  is  even 
authorised  to  take  a  second  husband,  for  a  regular  union  is 
always  preferable  to  disorderly  life  (1  Cor.  vii.  27-40).     For  the 
rest,  he  reminds  his  flock  that  the  end  of  the  world  is  at  hand  ; 
and  they  should  behave  as  if  it  were  imminent ;  "  the  time  is 
short"  (1  Cor.  vii.  29).     The  theologians  who  quote  and  com- 
mentate St.  Paul,  like  those  who  expound  the  Gospels,  often 
forget  that  these  documents  were  written  by  men  to  whom  the 
second  coming  of  Christ  and  the  final  catastrophe  were  matters 
of  daily  hope  or  fear.     If  the  Church  contrived  to  build  a 
lasting   edifice   upon    such    foundations,  it  was   because,  with 
necessary  lack    of   logic,    she   transformed    them    rapidly   and 
completely. 


30      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

60.  The  chronology  of  Paul's  life  is  very  obscure;  the 
following  are  probable  dates : 

A.I).  36.  The  Conversion  of  Paul.     He  goes  to  Arabia. 

39.  Paul   at   Jerusalem.      He   preaches    in    Syria   and 

Cilicia. 
49.  The  Conference  at  Jerusalem.     Paul  in  Galatia  and 

Troas. 
51.  Paul  in  Macedonia. 

53.  Paul  at  Corinth  and  in  Achaia. 

54.  Paul  at  Jerusalem,  Antioch  and  Ephesus. 

57.  Paul  in  Macedonia,  Achaia,  Philippi  and  Jerusalem. 

58-60.  Paul  in  prison  at  Csesarea. 

61-63.  Paul  at  Rome,  where  he  is  put  in  prison. 

64  (?).  Death  of  Paul  at  Rome. 

61.  The  group  of  letters  attributed  to  St.  Peter,  St.  John, 
St.  Jude  and  St.  James  are  called  the  Catholic  Epistles,  because 
thev  are  addressed  to  the  Church  at  large.  Not  one  of  them  is 
authentic.  The  First  Epistle  of  Peter,  dated  from  Babylon,  is 
thoroughly  Pauline  in  spirit;  it  was  perhaps  fabricated  with 
a  view  to  suggest  that  Peter  had  lived  at  Babylon  (ancient 
Cairo),  and  that  this  community  was  more  ancient  than  that 
of  Alexandria,  which  claimed  to  have  been  founded  by  St. 
Mark.  The  author  has  thus  helped  to  accredit  the  legend 
of  the  coming  of  St.  Peter  to  Rome,  which  is  called  Babylon 
in  the  Apocalypse.  It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that  this 
satirical  designation,  comprehensible  enough  in  an  invective, 
would  be  absurd  in  the  heading  of  a  letter.  The  Second  Epistle 
of  Peter  is  also  Grjrco-Egyptian,  and  very  near  in  date  to  the 
apocryphal  Gospel  of  St.  Peter  (about  1 30).  The  three  Epistles 
ascribed  to  St.  John  are  probably  by  the  same  John  as  the 
Gospel,  but  not  by  the  Apostle ;  in  the  last  two,  the  author 
speaks  of  himself  as  the  elder  (presbyter).  The  Epistle  of  Jude 
is  a  little  homily  against  the  heretics,  written  in  Egypt  after 
the  year  100,  in  the  same  tone  as  the  Second  Epistle  of  St. 
Peter ;  it  could  not  possibly  be  by  its  reputed  author,  Judas, 
the  brother  of  Jesus.  The  Epistle  of  James  upholds  the 
doctrine   of  salvation   by  works,  in    opposition    to    St.   Paul's 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  SI 

theory ;  this  is  why  Luther  characterised  it  disdainfully  as 
the  epistle  of  straw.  St.  Jerome  knew  that  it  was  not  by  the 
brother  of  Jesus. 

62.  One  of  these  forgeries  was  subjected  to  an  interpolation 
of  later  date,  probably  by  the  Spaniard  Priscillian  (c.  380).  In 
chap.  V.  of  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  John  are  these  words : 
"  There  are  three  that  bear  witness  in  heaven,  the  Father,  and 
the  Word,  and  Holy  Ghost :  and  these  three  are  one.""  If  these 
two  verses  were  authentic,  they  would  be  an  affirmation  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  dating  from  the  first  century,  at  a  time 
when  the  Gospels,  the  Acts  and  St.  Paul  ignore  it.  But  it  has 
been  demonstrated  that  these  verses  were  an  interpolation,  for 
they  do  not  appear  in  the  best  manuscripts,  notably  all  the 
Greek  manuscripts  down  to  the  fifteenth  century.  The  Roman 
Church  refused  to  bow  to  evidence.  "How,"  she  argued,  "if 
these  verses  were  an  interpolation,  could  the  Holy  Spirit,  who 
guides  and  directs  the  Church,  have  allowed  her  to  regard  this 
lofty  affirmation  of  the  Trinity  as  authentic,  and  permitted  its 
insertion  in  the  official  edition  of  the  sacred  books  'i "  ^  The 
Congregation  of  the  Index,  on  January  13,  1897,  with  the 
approbation  of  Leo  XIII.,  forbade  any  question  as  to  the 
authenticity  of  the  text  relating  to  the  "three  heavenly 
witnesses."  It  showed  in  this  connection  a  wilful  ignorance  to 
which  Job's  rebuke  (xiii.  7)  is  specially  applicable :  "  Will  ye 
talk  deceitfully  for  God  > " 

63.  The  Apocalypse  or  Revelation  of  St.  John  was  written, 
according  to  tradition,  in  the  Isle  of  Patmos,  to  which  John  had 
been  banished  by  Domitian.  It  is  a  glorification  of  the  Lamb 
(Jesus),  and  a  prediction  of  the  downfall  of  Rome,  which  is 
called  "  Babylon  the  Great,  the  mother  of  abominations  of  the 
earth,  drunken  with  the  blood  of  the  saints  and  martyrs  of 
Jesus"  (xvii.  5,  6).  At  the  end  of  one  thousand  years,  after 
the  triumph  of  the  Church,  the  dead  are  to  rise  again.  Satan 
will  be  released  from  his  prison,  and  God  will  send  down  fire 
from  heaven ;  this  was  the  origin  of  the  so-called  millenarian 
beliefs,  which  have  seduced  a  large  number  of  visionaries.  The 
Apocalypse  cannot  be  the  work  of  the  Apostle  John ;  it  is 

^  See  Houtin,  La  Question  biblique  au  XIX^™'  siecle,  p.  220. 


32      A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

scarcely  possible  that  it  can  be  by  the  same  hand  as  the  Fourth 
Gospel  and  the  three  Johannine  Epistles.  The  author,  though 
very  personal  in  his  style  and  composition,  has  made  use  of 
more  ancient  documents  of  the  same  stamp.  The  basis  is  a 
Jewish  diatribe  against  Nero,  who  seems  to  be  designated  by 
the  "number  of  the  Beast,"  666,  the  sum  of  the  letters  of  the 
Emperor's  name,  according  to  their  numeral  value  in  Hebrew 
(xiii.  18) ;  but  the  Christian  revision  must  certainly  have  been 
carried  out  under  Domitian — who  was  called  the  bald  Nero — in 
93,  for  there  is  a  reference  to  the  great  crisis  in  the  wine 
industry  owing  to  a  glut  (chap.  vi.  6),  which,  according  to 
pagan  texts,  took  place  in  a.d.  92. 

64.  Tlie  author  of  Revelation  calls  himself  John  the  Apostle, 
and  addresses  the  Seven  Churches  of  Asia ;  as  he  was  not  the 
Apostle  John,  who  died  perhaps  in  Palestine  about  44,  he  was  a 
forger.  Many  details,  unintelligible  at  first  sight,  have  been 
recently  shown  to  refer  to  astrology ;  but  among  such 
absurdities  and  hosts  of  others,  there  are  certain  sublime 
passages  which  have  become  classic  in  all  literatures.  The 
Church  hesitated  to  admit  this  book  into  the  Canon  ;  it  was  the 
name  of  John  which  decided  the  matter. 

65.  Since  the  year  1892,  we  have  been  in  possession  ot 
an  Apocalypse  attributed  to  St.  Peter,  discovered  in  Egypt, 
together  with  the  Gospel  known  as  that  of  St.  Peter.  It  is 
a  vision  of  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  the  other  world, 
dating  from  about  the  year  130,  and  interesting  as  the  first 
Christian  essay  in  eschatology  (the  science  of  the  Last  Things). 
It  is  derived  from  popular  Jewish  and  Greek  sources,  and 
shows  striking  analogies  with  the  Orphic  doctrines.  The 
author  was  an  Egyptian  Jew,  of  Hellenistic  tendencies.  This 
Apocalypse  was  probably  produced  in  the  same  literary  factory 
as  the  two  letters  of  St.  Peter  and  his  Gospel,  which  are  also 
Graeco-Egyptian  forgeries. 

66.  Certain  writings  not  included  in  the  Canon  have 
exercised  so  strong  an  influence  that  they  demand  a  brief 
mention  here. 

They  are  in  the  first  place  letters.  (1)  A  letter  attributed 
to  the  Apostle  Barnabas,  the  companion   of  St.   Paul ;    it  is 


CHRISTIAN  ORIGINS  83 

posterior  to  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  and  very  hostile  to  the  Jews 
in  tone ;  this  again  is  a  forgery,  made  in  Egypt.  (2)  The 
First  Epistle  of  Clement,  Bishop  of  Rome,  to  the  Corinthians  ; 
this  is  perhaps  the  work  of  a  Hellenistic  Jew,  a  freeman  of  the 
Consul  Flavius  Clemens,  who  was  a  Christian  or  a  Jew.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  at  this  early  period  (c.  100  a.d.)  the  moral 
influence  exercised  by  the  Church  of  Rome  upon  a  Greek 
Church.  (3)  The  so-called  Second  Epistle  of  Clement  is  a 
homily  by  another  author,  sometimes  attributed  to  Clement  of 
Alexandria.  (4)  The  epistle  of  the  disciple  of  John  the  Elder, 
Polycarp,  Bishop  of  Smyrna,  who  was  martyred  in  a.d.  155, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-six.  This  letter  is  addressed  to  the 
Philippians,  and  is  probably  authentic.  (5)  Seven  very  in- 
structive letters  attributed  to  Ignatius,  Bishop  of  Antioch, 
who  was  martyred  under  Trajan.  Ignatius  is  supposed  to  have 
written  them  during  his  journey  from  Antioch  to  Rome,  to 
communities  which  had  received  him  cordially ;  he  warns  them 
against  schisms,  Docetism  and  Judaism ;  these  communities 
were  governed  by  Bishops.  The  first  mention  of  the  Gospels, 
in  the  sense  of  a  history  of  Jesus,  occurs  in  one  of  these  letters 
(that  to  the  Smyrnaeans).  The  authenticity  of  these  letters  has 
been  denied,  but  not  convincingly  ;  it  is  by  no  means  impossible 
that  the  episcopate  may  have  been  organised  in  Greek  territory 
as  early  as  the  year  100. 

67.  The  Pastor  of  Hernias  is  a  long  and  very  tedious  work 
which  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Origen  believed  to  be 
"inspired."  The  Pastor  is  the  guardian  angel  of  the  writer, 
who  has  had  visions,  and  reveals  them  to  bring  back  the  faithful 
from  error.  Hermas,  born  in  Greece,  and  sometime  a  slave  in 
Rome,  had  obtained  his  freedom,  and  was  living  in  the  city 
with  his  family.  The  Pastor  was  probably  written  not  much 
later  than  the  year  100  a.d. 

68.  It  was  believed  in  Rome,  in  the  third  century,  that  after 
Pentecost  the  Apostles  had  drawn  up  a  joint  confession  of  faith 
or  Syvibol,  which  had  to  be  recited  by  all  adults  before  receiving 
the  rite  of  baptism.  This  is  obviously  impossible,  but  the  most 
ancient  Symbol  of  this  nature,  known  to  Justin  in  150,  was  a 
product  of  the  Church  of  Rome  shortly  before  the  year  100. 


34      A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

69.  We  possess  certain  fragments  of  a  work  called  the 
Preaching  or  Doctrine  of  St.  Peter,  which  purports  to  be 
addressed  to  the  heathen  by  the  Apostle ;  this  is  another 
Graeco-Roman  forgery  dating  from  the  end  of  the  first  century. 

70.  A  fortunate  discovery  in  a  Gi'eek  library  (1883)  revealed 
to  us  the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles  or  D'ldache,  a  manual  of  the 
Christian  life  both  individual  and  social,  a  document  of  the  first 
importance  to  the  student  of  the  primitive  communities,  their 
organisations  and  rites.  The  Apostles,  of  course,  had  nothing 
to  do  with  it ;  but  the  Didache,  a  compilation  from  ancient 
catechisms,  seems  to  have  been  drawn  up  in  Syria  before  a.d.  150. 

71.  An  important  group  of  documents — called  the  pseudo- 
Clementine  writings,  because  they  were  falsely  attributed  to 
Clement,  Bishop  of  Rome — comprises  twenty  homilies  and  a 
didactic  tale  entitled  The  Recognitions.  The  ground-work  of 
these  compositions  is  almost  identical.  Clement,  instituted 
Bishop  of  Rome  by  St.  Peter,  describes  his  conversion,  on 
quitting  the  school  of  philosophy,  to  St.  James,  the  head  of  the 
Church  at  Jerusalem.  Having  learnt  that  the  Son  of  God  was 
born  in  Judaea,  he  set  out  for  that  country,  met  Barnabas  at 
Alexandria,  and  Peter  at  Csesarea ;  the  latter  caused  him  to 
witness  his  dispute  with  Simon  Magus  and  initiated  him  into 
his  doctrine.  Simon,  vanc^uished,  was  pursued  by  Peter  and 
Clement,  who  overtook  him  at  Laodicea,  and  reopened  the 
debate  with  him.  Finally,  Peter  departed  to  Antioch,  and 
there  founded  a  community.^  The  title  of  Recognitions  is 
based  on  an  episode  in  the  seventh  book  :  Matidia,  the  mother 
of  Clement,  had  quitted  Rome  for  Athens ;  she  is  discovered 
there  with  her  sons  by  her  husband,  who  had  set  out  in  search 
of  her.  In  all  this  farrago,  Paul  is  not  even  mentioned ;  it  is 
a  frankly  Judaeo-Christian  document.  The  Homilies  and  the 
Recognitions  have  a  common  source  dating  probably  from  about 
A.D.  150-200 ;  the  compilation  was  made  in  the  third  century. 

72.  There  is  no  more  mysterious  figui'e  than  that  Simon, 
the  magician  of  Samaria,  whom  we  find  opposing  St.  Peter  in 
the  Acts,  and  whom  Justin,  the  Clementine  writings  and  the 
apocryphal   Acts   represent  as  a  very  important  personage  at 

^  See  Renan,  Origines,  vol.  vii.  p.  77. 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  35 

Rome.  There,  under  Claudius  or  Nero,  he  rivals  Peter  in 
supernatural  power,  and  ends  by  promising  to  fly  through  the 
air  before  the  Emperor ;  but  a  prayer  offered  up  by  St.  Peter 
deprives  him  of  his  power ;  he  falls  and  breaks  his  neck. 
Justin  (a.d.  150)  asserts  that  he  saw  his  tomb  on  the  island 
in  the  Tiber,  with  this  inscription  :  "To  Simon,  the  holy  god." 
This  shows  the  ignorance  and  carelessness  of  Justin ;  the 
inscription  in  question  has  been  found,  and  bears  a  dedication 
to  Semo  Sancus,  an  ancient  Roman  god  whom  a  professor  of 
rhetoric  like  Justin  should  certainly  have  known.  But  who  was 
this  Simon,  the  divine  honours  accorded  to  whom  in  Samaria  are 
attested .''  The  question  has  never  been  answered.  In  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  school  of  Tubingen  insisted  a  good  deal 
on  the  traditions  relative  to  the  rivalry  of  Peter  and  Simon ;  it 
suggested  that  Simon  represented  St.  Paul,  and  hence  drew  the 
somewhat  exaggerated  conclusion  that  the  rivalry  between  the 
two  Apostles  degenerated  into  personal  hatred.  Their  theo- 
logical hatred,  evident  in  the  epistles  of  Paul,  went  far  enough. 
Not  only  did  the  Judaising  group  at  Jerusalem  organise  a  kind 
of  mission  against  Paul,  but  false  epistles  were  circulated  under 
his  name  (2  Thess.  ii.  2).  He  accordingly  denounces  his 
adversaries  as  dogs,  liars,  children  of  the  devil  and  forgers.  It 
is  necessary  to  call  attention  to  these  passages  at  the  close  of  a 
chapter  in  which,  examining  the  early  books  of  the  Church,  we 
have  found  forgeries  on  every  hand. 

73.  I  might  now  consider  many  questions  connected  with 
the  above :  the  first  Apologies  addressed  by  Christians  to  the 
pagan  emperors,  the  Acts  of  the  martyrs,  very  few  of  which  are 
authentic,  the  Apostolic  Constitutions ;  but  this  would  be  to 
trench  on  the  domain  of  literary  history.  I  will  conclude  with 
a  few  words  concerning  Antichrist  {i.e.  the  adversary  opposed  to 
Christ).  This  famous  name  first  appears  in  the  Epistles  of  St. 
John,  but  the  idea  is  much  more  ancient ;  it  is  that  of  the 
Babylonian  Tiamat  opposed  to  Marduk.  The  principle  of  evil 
is  substituted  for  the  dragon  of  the  primitive  myth,  and  between 
this  and  the  principle  of  good  a  terrible  conflict  will  be  waged 
before  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Traces  of  this 
conception  are  to  be  found  in  Ezekiel,  in  Daniel,  in  Baruch,  and 


86       A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

in  the  Apocalypse.  It  is  referred  to  in  the  Second  Epistle  to  the 
Thessalonians  (ii.  3) :  "  That  day  shall  not  come,  except  there 
come  a  falling  away  first,  and  that  man  of  sin  be  revealed,  the 
son  of  perdition."  Good  being  personified  in  Christ,  evil  was 
personified  in  Antichrist :  "For  many  shall  come  in  my  name," 
said  Jesus,  "  saying,  I  am  Christ ;  and  shall  deceive  many.  And 
ye  shall  hear  of  wars  and  rumours  of  wars ;  see  that  ye  be  not 
troubled ;  for  all  these  things  must  come  to  pass,  but  the  end  is 
not  yet.  .  .  .  All  these  are  the  beginning  of  sorrows.  .  .  .  And 
many  false  prophets  shall  arise.  .  .  .  Then  shall  be  great  tribu- 
lation, such  as  was  not  since  the  beginning  of  this  world  to  this 
time.  .  .  .  Then  shall  appear  the  sign  of  the  Son  of  Man  in 
heaven ;  and  then  shall  all  the  earth  mourn,  and  they  shall  see 
the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  with  power  and 
great  glory"  (Matt.  xxiv.). 

74.  These  terrifying  words  have  borne  terrible  fruit.  From 
Nero  onwards,  there  has  been  no  conspicuous  adversary  of  the 
Church  who  has  not  been  assimilated  to  the  Antichrist  whose 
appearance  is  to  inaugurate  an  era  of  catastrophe.  Luther 
identified  the  Pope  of  Rome  with  Antichrist ;  millions  of 
English  people  recognised  him  in  Napoleon.  We  have  already 
seen  how  in  the  Apocalypse  the  beast  was  Nero.  After  the 
death  of  this  wretch  there  was  a  rumour  that  he  had  fled  to  the 
Parthians,  and  that  he  would  come  back.  There  is  perhaps  an 
allusion  to  this  legend  in  the  Apocalypse  itself  and  in  the  First 
Epistle  of  St.  John  (iv.  3) :  "  Every  spirit  that  confesseth  not 
Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  not  of  God ;  and  this  is  that 
spirit  of  Antichrist,  whereof  ye  have  heard  that  it  should  come ; 
and  even  now  already  it  is  in  the  world."  Here,  Antichrist  is 
already  assimilated  to  heresy.  In  the  Sibylline  oracles  fabricated 
by  the  Jews  of  Alexandria,  the  name  of  Antichrist  does  not 
occur,  but  the  Roman  Empire,  the  object  of  a  ferocious  hatred, 
takes  its  place.  Popular  Jewish  literature  gave  the  name  of 
Koimdus  to  this  enemy  of  God,  and  described  him  as  a  hideous 
giant,  the  offspring  of  a  stone  virgin.  The  Christians  in  general 
reserved  the  name  of  Antichrist  for  heretics  and  schismatics ; 
but  in  the  fourth  century  the  idea  still  prevailed  that  the  coming 
of  Antichrist  would  be  the  awakening  and  return  of  Nero. 


CHRISTIAN   ORIGINS  37 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The  most  complete  repertory  is  Hauck'.s  Real-Encydop.  filr  protest anhschc 
Throloqie  (3rd  ed.,  24  vols.) ;  the  most  convenient  is  Dia  Rdigion  m  GeschicMe 
xL-Ml  GcqeuwaH,  5  vols.,  1909-1913.  Various  other  encyclopedias  and  diction- 
aries (SchafF-Herzog,  Hastings,  Lichtenberger,  Lncyd.  Britann,  CafJwh,: 
Emvd.,  etc.)  can  be  commended  to  students.  There  are  special  dictionaries  of 
Christian  biography  (down  to  Charlemagne)  by  Smith,  of  Christian  archaeology 
by  Martignyf  Smith,  and  Dom  Cabrol  (in  progress),  of  Catholic  theology  by 
Vacant  (in  progress),  etc.  Among  periodicals  I  may  mention  the  Expositor, 
the   Revue  bibliquc  and  the  Theologische  Lileraturzdtung  (bibliographical). 

Renan,  Orlqinc^  da  Chnstianisme,  8  toIs.,  1863-1883  (with  a  good  index)  ; 
Duchesne  Eistoire  andenne  dt  UEqlise,  vols.  i.  and  ii.,  1906-1908  ;  Cuignebert, 
Mamid  d'Jndoire  aadenne  du  Ckristianisme,  1906  ;  Wendland  Die  hdknutisch- 
romisdie  Kvltur  in  ihrcn  Bezidmngtn  zit  Judnithum  uml  Christcntimm,  IJU/ ; 
Conybeare,  Christian  Oriqiiis,  1909;  The  Historical  Christ,  1914.  There  is  a 
carefully  selected  bibliography  in  Nicolardot,  Les  trois  premiers  Evangdislcs, 

2.'  Loisv,  Mvsth-es  vaicns  et  Myst.  chrdien,  1919  (cf.  RnK  archiol,  1919,  ii. 
p.  384)  ;  W.  Bousset,  Geschichtc  des  Christiisglaubens,  1913  (cf.  Lev.  critique, 

^^^3    Loi^y    Hist  du  canon  du  N.    T.,   1891  ;  Th.   Zahn,   Gesch.   des   N.    T. 
Kanons,  2nd  ed.,  1904  ;  J.  Leipoldt,  same  title,  2  vols.,  1907-1908. 

5  Text  of  the  Fragmentum  Muraturianum  (and  of  most  of  the  other  docu- 
ments of  the  primitive  church)  in  Rauschen,  Florilegium  patnsticum,  fasc.  lu., 

11.  M.  Nicolas,  Utiides  critiques  sur  la  Bible,  vol.  ii.,  1864  (old,  but  still 

''^''l3"^E"preusschen,   Antileqomcna,   2nd  ed.,    1905  (fragments  of  the  lost 
Gospels  and  quotations  from  the  Fathers,  with  German  trans  ation). 

14.  Ad,  Jtilicher,  Einldtuvg  in  das  N.T.  6th  ed.,  1915  (Lnglish  transl) ; 
E.  Renan,  Les  ^vangiles,  1877  ;  Loisy,  Les  Ecangiln  synoptiques,2  vols.,  1J07  ; 
Wellhausen,  Einleitung  in  die -^  erden  Ev.,  1905;  Koltzmann  Ilcmdeomwentar 
zum  N.  T.,  3rd  ed.,  1901  d  seq  ;  H.  Weinel,  Theologie  d,s  AT  2nd  ed  1913  , 
A.  RevilleV&H.,  2nd  ed.,  1906;  A.  Loisy,  Jaus,  1910;  P.  Wevnle  Qiiellen 
des  LebenJesu,  1906  ;  Schmiedel,  art.  (?o.y)cfe in  Cheyne  ;  Schweitzer,  Geschichfe 
der  Leben-Jesu-Forschimg,  IdlS.  ^         ., 

17.  Preusschen,  op.  cit.  (13),  in  Greek  and  German  ;  Loisy,  Evangiles 
sy7ioptiqucs,  \o\.  i.  {in  French).  ,    t  i      ik     ioas 

18.  L.    Venard,  Les  Ev.    synoptiques  (in  Rev.   du   Clcrgi,  July    lo,    1908, 

^*   186."  B.  W.  Bacon,  Is  Mark  a  Roman  Gospdt  \%\^. 

\M.  A.  Harnack,  Lukas  der  Arzt,  1906 ;  Burkitt,  The  Gospel  History,  1906 
(connection  between  St.  Luke  and  Josephus)  ;  Lagrange  Ev.  sdon  Lur 
1921  ;  P.  C.  Sense  (pseudonym  of  Lyons),  Origin  of  the  Third  Gospel,  19U1  (the 

Luke  of  Marcion).  „ 

18/.  Loisy,  Le  quatrihne  Emngile  1903  (1922);  Wei  hausen  ^«'  4  ^^^Jr., 
1908;  works  of  B.  Bacon  (1910),  C.  Clemen  (1912),  M.  W.  Bauer  (1912j,  on 

the  same.  ,  .        ,  ,  „„, 

21.  Saintyves,  Le  Fierges  mires  et  les  naissances  miraculeuses,  1901. 

22.  A.  CauBse,  UAvolution  du  messianisme,  1908. 

26.   Saintyves,  Le  miracle  d  la  critique  histurique,  1907.        ^  ^         ,  „ 

29.  Interpolations  in  the  MSS.  of  the  Slav  translations  of  Josephus  :  l>ev. 

crit.,   1906,    ii.    447;   J.   Frei,  Die  Probleme  des  Lndeiisgc.chidde     l^Q^.-l^. 

Reinach,  Joslphe  sur  Je's«s  (in  Rev.  des  Etudes  juives,  vol.  xxxv.  1897)  ;  JNoraen, 

Niue  Jahrb.,  1913,  p.  637  ;  Laqueur,  Josephus,  1921. 


38      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

30.  Photii  Bihliotlicca,  ed,  Bekker,  cod.  3.3. 

32.  H.  Strack,  Jcs2is  nach  jUdischen  Angaben,  1910;  W.  Bauer,  Lcben  Jesu, 
1909. 

.35.  Curiosity  of  Tiberius:  S.  R.,  CuUes,  vol.  iii.  p.  16. 

36.  Chapman  in  Journ.  of  Theological  Studies,  July  and  October,  1907  ;  cf. 
S.  R.,  Cultes,  vol.  iii.  p.  21. 

38.  Art.  Judas  in  Cheyne. 

39.  Goguel,  Erv.  hist,  rclig.  1910,  p.  165 ;  Juster,  Les  Juifs  dans  V Empire, 
1914,  vol.  ii.  p.  135. 

40.  Frazer,  Golden  Bough,  2nd  ed.,  iii.  p.  191. 

41.  S.  Reinach,  Cultes,  i.  p.  232 ;  Lagrange,  Bern,  svr  VOrpheus,  1910. 

42.  Art.  Docciism  in  Hastings,  Encycl  of  Bel. ,  vol.  iv. 

43.  S.  Reinach,  OuUcs,  iv.  p.  200. 

44.  Conybeare,  The  Historical  Christ,  1914  ;  Guignebert,  Brohleme  dc  J6siis, 
1921  ;  Loisy,  Bcv.  crit.  1916,  ii.  p.  72. 

45.  Strauss,  Lchen  Jesu,  gives  all  the  reputed  prophecies. — E.  Carus  Selvyn, 
The  Oracles  in  the  N.  T. ,  1912  ;  Rendel  Harris,  Origin  of  the  Doctrine  of  Trinity, 
1919  (a  very  early  collection  of  prophecies  from  the  6.  T.,  used  by  Christian 
preachers  before  the  Gospels). — On  Psalm  xxii.  S.  Reinach,  Cultes,  ii.  p.  437  ; 
iii.  p.  20  ;  iv.  p.  188. 

46.  Christian  morals :  Loisy,  Bev.  hist.  litt.  relig.,  1920,  p.  157. 

47.  E.  Hennecke,  Handhuch  zu,  den  N.  T.  Aimkryphen,  1904  ;  M.  Lepin, 
iSoang.  canoniqucs  et  iSvang.  apocryphes,  1907  ;  A.  Robinson,  The  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  Beter  and  the  Brvelation  ofBeter,  1892  {cf.  S.  R.,  Cultes,  vol.  iii.  p.  284) ; 
identity  of  the  Gospels  of  Peter  and  of  the  Egyptians :  Volter,  in  Zeitschrift 
fur  N.  T.  Wissenschaft,  1905,  p.  368.— Attribution  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to 
Cerinthus :  P.  C.  Sense  (Lyons),  The  Fourth  Gospel,  1899. 

48.  Roberts,  Apocryphal  Gospels  and  Bevelatiuns,  1890  (English  translation) ; 
M.  Nicolas,  Etudes  sur  les  Evangilcs  a2wcryphes,  1866;  P.  Peeters,  L'ivangile 
de  VEnfance,  1914. 

49.  Griffinhoofe,  The  unwritten  Sayings  of  Christ,  1903. 

50.  A.  Harnack,  Die  Ajtostelgeschichte,  2nd  ed.,  1911  ;  E.  Norden,  Agnostos 
Theos,  1913;  Loisy,  Les  Actes  des  Ap.,  1920;  Goguel,  same  subject,  1922; 
Jackson  and  Kirsopp  Lake,  The  Acts,  1920. 

51.  Lipsius,  Dit  apokryphen  Ajmstelgeschichten,  3  vols.,  1883—1890. — Acts  of 
Andrew  and  of  Matthias:  S.  R.,  Cultes,  i.  p.  395;  Thekla,  ibid.,  iv.  p.  229; 
L.  Vouaux,  Actes  de  Baul,  1913. 

52.  W.  Ramsay,  S.  Baul,  1895  ;  A.  Sabatier,  Vapdtrc  Baul,  1896  ;  Goguel, 
Vapotre  Baal,  1904  ;  A.  Deissmann,  Licht  von  Osten,  1908  (style  of  the  Epistles 
compared  with  pagan  documents  of  the  same  period)  ;  A.  Schweitzer, 
Geschichte  der  Baulus-Forschuvg,  1911. — Supposed  influence  of  the  Pagan 
mysteries  on  Paul:  Renan,  Etudes,  1864,  p.  58;  Bevue  du  Clergi,  April  1, 
1913 ;  Loisy,  Les  Mysteres  paiens  et  le  Myst.  chriticn,  1919. — See  also  Loisy, 
Bev.  hist.  litt.  relig.,  1921-2,  and  his  ed.  of  Galatians,  1916. 

58.  Aug.  Sabatier.  La  doctrine  de  Vexpiation  et  son  Evolution  (in  Etudes  de 
thMo'iie,  1901,  p.  1)  ;  Rashdall,  The  Idea  of  Atonement,  1919. — On  the  Greek 
idea  of  responsibility,  first  collective  and  then  individual :  Glotz,  La  soUdarite 
de  lafamillc  dans  le  droit  criminel,  1904. 

60.  Art.  Chronolociy  in  Cheyne  (p.  812^  ;  Bev.  du  Clergi,  October  15,  1913. 

61.  T.  Calmes,  Epiltres  caAholiques,  1905  ;  Reuss,  La  Bible,  vol.  xv.  On 
the  Epistles  of  Peter:  S.  R.,  Fuv.  archiol.,  1908,  i.  p.  150;  E.  Robson, 
Second  Epistle,  1915. 

63.  Art.  Ajiocalypse,  in  Cheyne. — Astrology:  F.  Boll,  Aus  der  Offenba.rung 
JohannL,  1914;  see  Loisy,  Bev.  hist.  litt.  relig.  1922,  p.  178. — On  the  date: 
S.  R.,  Cultes,  vol.  ii.  p.  356. —On  the  death  of  John:  Cheyne,  art.  John, 
p.  2509. 

65.  S.  R. ,  Cultes,  vol.  iii.  p.  284,  and  the  ed.  of  Robinson,  Lods,  etc. 

66.  Loisy,  Bev.  hist.  litt.  relig.,  1921,  p.  305. — On  the  primitive  hierarchy: 
J.  R^ville,  Orig.  de  I'dpiscopat,  1894 ;  Batiffol,  Etudes  d'histoire,  p.  223. 

67.  A.  Lelong,  Le  Basteur  d'Uermas,  1912. 


CHRISTIAN  ORIGINS  89 

68.  F.  Kattenbusch,  Das  apostol.  Symbol,  2  vols.,  1894-1900 ;  Vacandard, 
Le  symbole  des  ap6lres  (in  Eludes  dc  critique,  1906,  p.  1  et  seq.). 

70.  Kruger,  AUchristliche Literatur,  1895,  pp.  38,  40 ;  Massebieau,  Venscignc- 
ment  des  apotres,  1884;  Loisy,  Rev.  hist.  Hit.  relig.,  1921,  p.  443. 

71.  H.  Waitz,  Die  Pseudoklenientinen,  1904;  art.  Clementinen  in  Hauck. 

72.  Alfaric,  Simon  le  magicien,  1922. 

73.  Apologies:  Kruger,  Altchristl.  Litcralur,  189.5,  p.  60  ct  seq.  ;  A.  Puech, 
Les  Jpologisies  grecs,  1912.— Acts  of  the  martyrs  :  Cabrol,  art.  Actes ;  Hauck, 
art.  Acta  m.artyntm ;  Dufourcq,  Les  "  Gesta  viartyrum"  romains,  3  vols., 
1900-1907.— Antichrist :  Renan,  I' Antichrist,  1873;  art.  Antichrist,  in  Hauck 
and  the  Jewish  Enrycl. 

74.  H.  Preuss,  Die  VorsteUuvgen  vom  Antichrist  im  svdteren  Mittelalter, 
1906. 


CHAPTER  II 

CHRISTIANITY  :     FROM    ST.    PAUL    TO    JUSTINIAN 

First  Christian  communities — The  Preaching  of  St.  Paul. — Particularism  and 
universalism— The  Gnostics — Organisation  of  communities — The  gift  of 
tongues  or  glossolaly — The  function  of  the  Jewish  synagogues — Persecu- 
tion of  Christians  at  Rome — Pliny's  letter  to  Trajan — ^Iotives  for  the 
persecutions — The  martyrs — Cliristian  virtues— Heresies  ;  the  influence  of 
heretics  on  the  Church — The  concentration  of  the  spiritual  power — 
Montanism — Persecutions  under  Decius  and  Diocletian — Constantine  and 
the  edict  of  toleration — Persecution  of  pagans  by  Christians— The  Dona- 
tist  schism — Christian  Monachism — Cradual  changes  in  the  Church — 
Arius  and  Athanasius  ;  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity — The  first  murder  for 
error  of  opinion  :  Priscillian — Monophysite  heresy — The  Coptic  Church — 
St.  Augustine  and  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory — St.  Jerome — St.  Gregory 
Nazianzen — St.  Basil — St.  John  Chrysostom — St.  Ambrose — The  growth 
of  luxury  in  the  Church. 

1.  The  Jewish  sect  which  proclaimed  Jesus  its  master  developed 

mainly  in  two  small  groups,  one  in  Galilee,  the  other  in  Judaea. 

It  was  in  Judaea,  at  Jerusalem,  that  the  Apostles  lived.     While 

waiting  for  the  glorious  return  of  the  Messiah,  they  organised 

their  body  with  a  view  to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.     It  soon 

appeared  necessary  not  to  allow  the  double  burden  of  preaching 

and  distributing  alms  to  rest  upon  the  same  men.     For  the 

latter  task,  deacons  were  in.stituted,  among  them  a  hellenising 

Jew  named  Stephen,   who  was  accused  of  blasphemy  by  the 

orthodox  Jews  and  stoned.    He  is  called  the  Proto-mariyr  by  the 

Church.     This  execution,  which  was  followed  by  a  persecution, 

accentuated   the   opposition  between   the  synagogue   and   the 

dissenters ;  it  was  favourable  to  the  propaganda  of  the  latter, 

inasmuch  as  it  caused  their  dispersal.     This  propaganda,  chiefly 

among  the  Jewish  Hellenic  communities,  though  also  among 

the  heathen,  was  not  initiated  by   St.  Paul,  who  reaped  the 

fruit  and  fame  of  an  obscure  activity  prior  to  his  own.     One  of 

the  most  successful  missionaries  in  Samaria  was  the  deacon  Philip, 

who  is  said  to  have  converted  the  treasurer  of  an  Ethiopian 

princess,  thus  opening  up  Abyssinia  to  the  new  influences. 

40 


FROM   ST.   PAUL   TO   JUSTINIAN  41 

2.  Saul,  a  native  of  Tarsus,  said  to  have  been  a  pupil  of  the 
learned  Pharisee  Gamaliel,  had  shown  great  zeal  in  the  persecu- 
tion. He  set  out  for  Damascus,  to  stir  up  the  synagogue  in 
that  city.  On  the  way  he  had  a  vision  which  converted  him  to 
the  new  sect.  After  preaching  at  Damascus,  Saul  retired  for 
three  years  to  Hauran.  On  returning  to  Jerusalem,  he  was 
favourably  received  by  the  Apostles,  and  went  to  Antioch  with 
their  delegate  Barnabas.  It  was  the  Jews  of  Antioch,  converted 
by  Barnabas  and  Saul,  who  first  took  the  name  of  Christians. 
This  Greek  town  played  a  more  important  part  than  Jerusalem 
in  the  primitive  history  of  Christianity. 

3.  From  Antioch,  Saul  and  Barnabas  went  to  Cyprus,  the 
birthplace  of  Barnabas.  They  were  sympathetically  received 
by  the  Roman  proconsul,  Sergius  Paulus,  and  to  mark  his 
gratitude,  as  some  think,  Saul  changed  his  name  to  Paul.  After 
Cyprus  they  visited  Asia  Minor.  Paul  preached  at  Antioch  in 
Pisidia,  and  at  Lystra. 

4.  The  question  now  arose  as  to  whether,  in  order  to  enter 
the  new  communion,  it  was  necessary  to  pass  into  it  through 
the  synagogue,  undergo  circumcision,  and  conform  to  all  the 
Jewish  rites.  These  obligations  were  very  irksome  to  the 
pagans.  In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  Peter  and  the  other 
Apostles  of  Jerusalem,  Paul  abolished  them,  preached  salvation 
for  all,  Jews  and  Greeks  alike,  and  thus  rendered  the  rapid 
extension  of  Christianity  among  the  Gentiles  possible.  Hence 
the  name  "Apostle  of  the  Gentiles"  (Gentiles  =  heathen) 
applied  to  St.  Paul,  not  without  some  injustice  to  those  who 
had  shown  him  the  way. 

5.  This  evolution  of  infant  Christianity  was  laborious.  The 
struggle  between  Jewish  particularism  and  Christian  universalism 
was  a  struggle  between  Peter  and  Paul,  between  Jerusalem  and 
Antioch.  A  first  conference,  held  at  Jerusalem,  brought  about 
a  compromise  which  was  almost  immediately  violated  by  both 
parties.  Paul  pursued  his  universalist  apostolate  in  Asia  Minor, 
then  at  Philippi  in  Macedonia,  at  Thessalonica,  at  Athens,  and 
at  Corinth,  whence  he  returned  by  way  of  Ephesus  to  Antioch. 
The  evangelisation  of  Ephesus  had  been  already  begun  by  an 
Alexandrian  Jew  called  Apollos ;   it  soon  made  such  progress 


42       A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

that  the  vendors  of  little  objects  of  piety  for  the  worship  of  the 
Ephesian  Artemis  were  alarmed,  and  stirred  up  an  insmrection, 
the  prototype  of  many  others  which  the  Christians,  and  after- 
wards the  reformers  of  Christianity,  had  to  face. 

6.  Paul  returned  to  Jerusalem  in  57.  A  second  conference, 
the  echo  of  persistent  dissensions,  took  place  in  the  house  of 
James,  the  reputed  brother  of  Jesus.  A  Jewish  riot  then  gave 
occasion  for  the  intervention  of  the  Roman  Governor,  who  sent 
Paul  to  Caesarea.  Paul,  who  was  a  Roman  citizen,  demanded 
to  be  tried  in  Rome ;  he  v/as  sent  there  at  the  end  of  the  year 
59.  He  was  already  in  touch  with  the  little  Christian  com- 
munity founded  in  the  capital  by  Jewish  merchants  from  Syria, 
having  addressed  an  epistle  to  them  from  Corinth.  We  have 
no  details  of  his  trial  at  Rome,  and  his  legendary  journey  to 
Spain  or  Great  Britain  is  improbable.  He  is  supposed  to  have 
been  put  to  death  in  Rome  in  64. 

7.  Mark,  the  cousin  of  Barnabas,  had  accompanied  Paul  to 
Italy ;  after  the  arrest  of  Paul,  it  is  alleged  that  he  became  the 
secretary  of  Peter.  Luke,  a  Greek  physician  at  Antioch,  was 
also  converted  by  Paul,  and  laboured  to  propagate  his  doctrine. 
As  to  Peter,  his  travels  belong  to  the  domain  of  legend ;  it  is 
probable  that  he  died  by  violence  in  Palestine,  and  not  in 
Rome,  where  tradition  declares  him  to  have  been  executed  at 
the  same  time  as  Paul.  It  is  true  that  before  the  end  of  the 
first  century  it  was  believed  that  Peter  had  been  at  Rome  with 
Mark ;  but  this  belief  was  based  on  an  apocryphal  letter 
attributed  to  Peter,  which  was  circulated  about  the  year  90 
{cf.  above,  I,  §  61 ). 

8.  Nothing  definite  is  known  of  the  history  of  the  other 
Apostles,  and  the  stories  told  of  them  are  mere  fables.  James, 
a  pious  Jew  who  was  hostile  to  Paul,  continued  as  the  head  of 
the  Church  at  Jerusalem,  and  was  killed  in  a  disturbance. 
Matthew  is  supposed  to  have  gone  to  Arabia,  Andrew  to  the 
Crimea,  Thomas  to  India,  Philip  to  Syria.  John  was  believed 
to  have  settled  at  Ephesus  and  to  have  lived  there  to  an 
advanced  age,  surrounded  by  disciples,  one  of  whom,  the 
Presbyter  John,  may  have  been  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
of  the  Apocalypse,  and  of  the  letters  attributed  to  the  Apostle. 


FROM   ST.    PAUL  TO   JUSTINIAN  43 

The  story  of  the  sojourn  and  death  of  the  Virgin  Mary  at 
Ephesus  is  an  invention ;  the  discovery  of  her  reputed  house  at 
Ephesus  is  a  legend  born  of  pious  creduhty. 

9.  We  have  seen  that  an  Alexandrian  Jew,  Apollos,  first 
preached  Christianity  at  Ephesus.  The  numerous  writings  of 
Philo,  a  contemporary  of  Jesus,  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  may  all 
be  referred  to  Alexandrian  Judaism,  impregnated  with  Platonic 
speculations.  The  Hellenistic  Jews  introduced  into  Christianity 
the  conception  of  the  Logos  or  Word,  the  intermediary  between 
God  and  man,  incorporated  in  Jesus.  But  before  they  connected 
it  with  Jesus,  they  had  already  incorporated  the  Word  in  a 
legion  of  angels,  of  immaterial  beings  or  Eo?is,  of  allegories ; 
they  had  combined  their  traditional  monotheism  with  the 
popular  animistic  and  polydemonistic  beliefs  of  Syria  and  of 
Babylonia.  When  Christianity  took  the  place  of  Judaism  in 
these  combinations,  Christian  Gnosticism  (from  Gnosis,  a  know- 
ledge of  hidden  things)  came  into  being.  Outside  Palestine, 
Christianity  itself  was  a  Gnostic  sect,  and  this  is  why  at  a  very 
early  period  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  attributed  to  the  Gnostic 
Cerinthus,  a  contemporary  of  St.  John  at  Ephesus.  But 
Christianity  was  destined  to  triumph  over  the  other  Gnostic 
sects,  because  it  was  more  reasonable,  simpler,  purer,  and  less 
inclined  to  lose  itself  in  divagations.  Intent  on  well-doing  and 
essentially  hostile  to  the  depressing  forms  of  asceticism,  it  found 
its  adherents  mainly  among  men  of  good  sense  and  good  will, 
whereas  Gnosticism  appealed  to  visionaries  and  persons  of  ill- 
balanced  minds.  The  final  victory  of  the  Church  over  the 
Gnostics  was  that  of  disciplined   mysticism   over  intemperate 

mysticism. 

.  «  •  • 

10.  The  Church  about  the  year  a.d.  80  was  a  very  simple 
organisation.  In  addition  to  the  deacons,  there  were  deaconesses, 
generally  widows,  who  busied  themselves  with  works  of  charity 
and  propaganda  among  women.  Its  assemblies,  presided  over 
by  an  elder  {p-esbyter,  whence  the  word  priest)  or  superintendent 
(in  Greek  episkopos,  whence  bishop),  were  held  in  private  houses, 
first  on  Saturdays,  and  later  on  Sundays,  the  day  of  Christ's 
resurrection.     The  Old  Testament,  the  Epistles,  and  the  sayings 


44      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

attributed  to  Jesus  were  read  at  these  assemblies.  Baptism  was 
chieHy  administered  to  adults,  in  the  form  of  total  immersion. 
Sick  and  dying  persons  were  rubbed  with  holy  oil,  in  order  to 
scare  away  evil  spirits,  which  baptism  was  also  supposed  to 
drown.  Agapw  (love-feasts)  gathered  together  the  faithful, 
who  celebrated  the  Holy  Communion  in  common  in  the  dual 
form  of  bread  and  Avine.  It  was  called  an  "act  of  thanks- 
giving" in  memory  of  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus;  this  is  the 
Eucharist  (from  the  Greek  Eucharistia,  thanksgiving). 

11.  Among  the  faithful  of  the  primitive  churches  there 
were,  of  course,  a  certain  number  of  visionaries,  and  of  idle  and 
degraded  persons.  Many  believed  themselves  to  be  gifted  with 
prophetic  powers  and  disturbed  the  meetings  by  fits  of  glossolalt/, 
that  is  to  say,  an  outburst  of  inarticulate  sounds.  It  was  this 
gift  of  "speaking  with  tongues"  which  the  Apostles  were 
supposed  to  have  received  at  Pentecost  by  the  grace  of  the 
Holy  Ghost;  later,  the  double  meaning  of  the  word  "tongue" 
was  played  upon,  and  it  was  maintained  that  the  Apostles  had 
been  endowed  with  the  power  of  speaking  the  idioms  of  all  the 
people  to  whom  they  were  to  preach  the  gospel.  The  mani- 
festations of  glossolaly  were  checked  at  an  eai-ly  stage  ;  St.  Paul 
forbids  it  for  women,  together  with  teaching.  Although  celibacy 
was  not  imposed  on  any  one,  Christianity  demanded  purity  of 
life,  and  had  much  difl^culty  in  enforcing  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  visionaries  preached  asceticism  and  vegetarianism,  and 
inclined  more  or  less  openly  to  Gnostic  mysticism  ;  the  firmness 
and  good  sense  of  the  Elders  did  not  always  succeed  in 
neutralising  these  dangerous  tendencies. 

12.  The  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Romans  (a.d.  70) 
and  the  final  dispersal  of  the  Jews  throughout  the  Empire 
weakened  the  hopes  cherished  by  the  Christians  of  the  speedy 
return  of  Jesus  in  glory ;  for  these  they  substituted  the  expecta- 
tion of  his  spiritual  reign.  The  dispersed  Jews  founded  houses 
of  prayer,  or  synagogues,  on  every  hand,  with  butchers'  shops 
which  did  not  sell  the  "  meat  offered  to  idols,"  food  forbidden 
to  Jews  and  Christians  alike ;  these  synagogues  became  so  many 
new  centres  for  Christian  propaganda,  which,  although  hostile 
to  Judaism,  could  only  recruit  its  first  adherents  round  the 


FROM   ST.   PAUL   TO   JUSTINIAN  45 

synagogues,  where  the  words  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  found 
an  echo. 

13.  The  Christian  propaganda  soon  alarmed  the  interests  of 
those  who  hved  upon  the   official   pagan   cult,  and  of  those 
innumerable  charlatans  who  exploited  alien  forms  of  worship ; 
it  also  alarmed  the  lloman  Government,  which  distrusted  secret 
societies,  with  good  reason,  and  saw  in  the  Christians  a  party  of 
Jews  more  active  and  troublesome  than  the  rest.     When  Nero 
was  suspected  of  setting  fire  to  Rome  he  turned  the  accusation 
upon  the  horde  of  Orientals  who  were  always  talking  about  the 
Last  Judgment  and  the  destruction  of  the  world  by  fire.     The 
Roman  police  forthwith  inaugurated  a  series  of  wholesale  arrests 
and  executions ;  Jews  and   Christians  perished  together ;  this 
was  what  is  known  as  the  First  Persecution  (a.d.  65).     It  did 
not  put  a  stop  to  the  Christian  propaganda,  which  was  already 
carried  on  in  some  of  the   patrician  households  by  slaves  or 
female  servants,  natives  of  Syria.     Under  Domitian,  the  Consul 
Flavins  Clemens  and  his   wife  Domitilla  were  condemned  for 
"atheism";  they  had  no  doubt  become  Christians,  and  their 
"atheism"    consisted  in  denying   the   Roman  gods.     "Many 
others,"  says  the  historian  Dion  Cassius,  "were  punished  for 
atheism  and  for  Jeivish  customs,'"  and  afterwards  he   mentions 
Acilius  Glabrio,  a  former  consul,  among  the  victims  of  Domitian. 
The  fact  that  Christianity  had  penetrated  into  the  upper  classes 
of  Rome  before  the  year  100  was  of  vast  importance  to  its 
ultimate  development. 

14.  Pliny  the  younger,  legate  to  Bithynia  in  a.d.  112, 
wrote  to  the  Emperor  Trajan  asking  how  he  was  to  treat  the 
Christians.  On  this  occasion  he  was  primarily  the  spokesman 
of  the  cattle-dealers,  who  lamented  that  victims  for  sacrifice  were 
no  longer  bought.  "  You  must  not  seek  out  the  Christians," 
replied  Trajan,  "  but  if  they  are  denounced  and  convicted,  they 
must  be  punished.  If,  however,  any  accused  person  should 
deny  being  a  Christian,  and  should  prove  his  innocence  by 
invoking  our  gods,  he  may  be  pardoned."  These  few  lines  are 
of  immense  historical  value  ;  they  formed  the  rule  of  the  Roman 
government  until  the  persecution  which  began  under  Decius. 
The  picture  Pliny  paints  of  the  Christians  is  so  greatly  to  their 


46       A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

credit  that  the  authenticity  of  his  letter  has  been  (quite  ground- 
lessly)  suspected ;  unfortunately  the  unique  manuscript  from 
which  it  was  transcribed  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  has  disappeared,  no  one  knows  how,  and  doubts  as  to 
the  accuracy  of  the  published  version  are  possible. 

15.  The  attitude  of  the  Roman  officials  depended,  in  the 
first  instance,  on  that  of  the  communities  they  governed,  who 
denounced  the  Christians  or  not,  as  best  suited  their  own 
interests ;  in  the  second  place,  on  the  attitude  of  the  Christians 
and  the  degree  of  hostility  they  showed  to  official  paganism  ; 
finally,  on  the  easily  roused  ferocity  of  popular  superstition, 
which  attributed  all  natural  calamities  to  the  enemies  of  its 
gods.  The  lying  rumours  that  were  spread  abroad  concerning 
the  Christians,  on  account  of  the  mystery  with  which  they 
surrounded  certain  acts  of  their  worship,  such  as  the  Eucharist, 
and  more  particularly  the  accusation,  by  which  the  populace 
was  always  readily  infiamed,  that  they  offered  human  sacrifices, 
determined  certain  local  persecutions.  The  most  notorious  was 
that  at  Lyons  in  a.d.  177.  Here  there  was  a  little  community 
of  Greek  origin,  persons  of  some  means,  against  whom  the 
most  odious  calumnies  were  circulated.  Young  girls  and  old 
men  w  ere  cruelly  tortured.  "  It  is  you  who  are  the  man-eaters  !  *" 
cried  one  of  the  victims  to  the  judges.  To  combat  these  re- 
current accusations,  a  literature  grew  up,  first  in  Greek,  then  in 
Latin,  several  specimens  of  which  have  come  down  to  us.  The 
most  interesting,  the  Apolog^y,  written  in  Africa  by  Tertullian 
about  A.D.  200,  was  shortly  afterwards  translated  into  Greek. 

16.  There  was  also  a  literature  hostile  to  Christianity,  but 
it  has  perished  almost  entirely.  It  has,  however,  been  possible 
to  reconstitute  the  Tnie  Discourse  of  the  philosopher  Celsus  (c. 
170)  from  the  long  refutation  of  it  composed  by  Origen,  and  a 
portion  of  the  Emperor  Julian's  treatise  against  the  Christians, 
thanks  to  the  diatribe  of  St.  Cyril  (d.  444)  which  it  inspired. 

17.  The  ten  persecutions  enumerated  by  historians  of 
Christianity  are  a  fiction,^  and  Dodwell  (1684)  already  made 
short  work  of  the  legends  which  exaggerated    the  number  of 

*  The  persecutions  to  the  time  of  Decius  were  local  and  intermittent ; 
there  were  many  more  than  ten. 


FROM   ST.    PAUL   TO   JUSTINIAN  47 

martyrs.  This  name,  which  means  witness  in  Greek,  was  given 
to  those  who  proclaimed  their  faith  in  the  face  of  suffering  and 
died  for  it ;  those  who  suffered  but  survived  were  called  confessors. 
The  choice  of  the  term  martyr  seems  singular,  for  testimony- 
does  not,  to  us,  imply  the  infliction  of  a  penalty.  But  this  was 
not  the  case  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  where  the  evidence 
of  a  slave  was  not  admissible  unless  it  had  been  obtained  by 
torture.  In  the  language  of  the  slave  then,  "  to  bear  witness  " 
and  "to  suffer""  were  synonymous  terms,  and  thus  the  use  of 
the  word  martyr  implies  that  the  intermittent  persecution  was 
directed  chiefly  against  persons  of  servile  or  very  humble  con- 
dition, among  whom  the  early  Christians  were  mainly  recruited, 

18.  This  also  explains  certain  fine  characteristics  of  Christi- 
anity before  Constantine.  It  was  the  religion  of  poor  people, 
who  worked  and  suffered  and  helped  one  another.  A  Christian 
woman  binried  in  the  catacombs  of  Rome  is  called  in  her  epitaph 
"  a  friend  of  the  poor  and  a  workwoman."  This  is  a  kind  of 
affirmation  of  the  dignity  of  work  which  was  a  much  greater 
novelty  in  the  antique  world  than  charity.  Triumphant 
Christianity  forgot  this  truth,  but  recalled  it  at  a  later  period, 
when  it  undertook  the  reform   of  its  monastic  orders  in   the 

sixth  century. 

.  .  •  •  • 

19.  The  Church  of  the  second  and  the  third  centuries 
suffered  less  from  persecution  than  from  heresies.  I  have 
already  spoken  of  Gnosticism,  which,  as  a  fact,  was  more  ancient 
than  Christianity.  Exaggerating  the  anti-Jewish  tendencies  of 
Paul,  in  opposition  to  the  Judaising  Christians  known  as 
Ebionites,  certain  Gnostic  doctors  renounced  the  Old  Testament 
and  represented  the  God  of  Israel  as  a  demon,  the  creator  but 
the  enemy  of  mankind.  This  tendency  is  related  to  the 
Mazdaean  (Persian)  dualism  which  had  such  a  strong  influence 
upon  Gnosticism.  Had  the  Church  wandered  into  this  road, 
her  ruin  would  have  been  assured,  for  she  would  have  lost  the 
support  of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  the  pretended  prophecies 
which  all  then  agreed  to  accept.  She  resisted  the  Gnostics 
energetically,  though  not  without  making  certain  concessions  to 
them,  and  profiting  by  their  literary  activity.     Even  the  great 


48      A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Alexandrian  Doctors  of  a.d.  180  to  250,  Clement  and  Origen, 
who  created  Christian  exegesis  and  theology,  drew  inspiration, 
not  without  peril  to  the  orthodoxy  of  their  doctrine,  from  the 
Gnostics  who  had  preceded  them  in  these  sciences.  It  was  to 
Marcion  (c.  150),  that  the  Church  owed  the  first  idea  of  a 
Canon,  an  authorised  collection  of  the  writings  relating  to  the 
New  Law.  It  was  in  opposition  to  the  Gnostics  that  she  was 
led  to  formulate  her  dogmas,  her  profession  of  faith  (called 
the  Symbol  of  the  Apostles),  and  no  doubt  also  to  publish  the 
definitive  version  of  the  Four  Gospels  whose  divine  inspiration 
she  affirmed.  Modern  Christianity,  the  proselytising  force  of 
which  is  by  no  means  spent,  was  evolved  during  the  long 
trial  to  which  the  Church  was  subjected  by  Gnostic  assaults. 
The  works  of  the  Gnostics  are  mainly  known  to  us  through  the 
refutations  of  which  they  were  the  object.  In  these  polemical 
writings  theological  animus  plays  an  important  part,  and  the 
Gnostics  are  accused  of  crimes  which  were  no  doubt  imaginary ; 
but  their  extreme  doctrines  were  dangerous  both  to  society  and 
the  individual,  and  the  Church  did  well  to  discard  them. 

20.  It  was  also  in  the  course  of  this  struggle  that  the 
Church  became  a  governing  body  and  that  spiritual  power  was 
concentrated  in  her.  The  bishop  was  the  head  of  his  com- 
munity, and  Rome  being  the  capital  of  the  Empire,  the  Roman 
Church  naturally  tended  to  become  the  Empress  of  the  Churches. 
This  supremacy  was  not  achieved  without  opposition.  The 
widely  spread  conception  of  the  original  primacy  of  the  Roman 
see,  of  the  Papacy  founded  by  St.  Peter  and  exercised  by  the 
Roman  bishops  who  succeeded  him,  is  not  confirmed  by  the  texts, 
which  rather  reveal  the  usual  phenomenon  of  a  slow  evolution. 

21.  Among  the  sects  of  the  second  century,  Montanism,  a 
sort  of  revival,  which  was  quite  distinct  from  Gnosticism,  was 
one  of  the  most  interesting.  Its  founder,  the  Phrygian  Mon- 
tanus,  a  converted  priest  of  Cybele,  began  to  prophesy,  in  the 
company  of  two  women,  and  recruited  many  adherents  in  spite 
of  his  condemnation  by  the  bishops  of  the  country  (172).  The 
serious  points  in  his  doctrine,  to  which  Tertullian  subscribed 
towards  the  end  of  his  career,  and  which  persisted  to  the  sixth 
century,  were,  that  the  era  of  divine  revelation  was  not  at  an 


FROM   ST.   PAUL   TO   JUSTINIAN  49 

end,  that  the  faith  of  the  Church  accepted  the  possibihty  of 
further  fruition,  that  women  might  receive  and  communicate 
inspiration  (in  opposition  to  the  theory  of  St.  Paul,  who 
ordered  them  to  keep  silence).  The  Montanist  discipline  was 
rigorous ;  it  ordained  two  additional  weeks  of  abstinence,  for- 
bade second  marriage,  and  denied  the  remission  of  certain  sins 
after  baptism.  The  polemics  to  which  Montanism  gave  rise 
inspired  the  Church  with  a  wholesome  aversion  from  pronounced 
asceticism,  in  practice  too  often  associated  with  moral  laxity. 
"Think  soberly,"  said  St.  Paul, 

22.  Christianity,  encouraged  l)y  the  imperial  favourite  Marcia 
under  Commodus,  and  protected  under  the  Syrian  dynasty  by 
the  piety  of  the  Empresses  and  the  eclecticism  of  the  Emperors, 
had  presently  to  reckon  with  the  brutality  of  the  military 
Emperors,  who  were  exasperated  by  the  distaste  of  its  adherents 
for  a  martial  career  and  their  persistent  refusal  to  render 
divine  honours  to  the  head  of  the  State.  The  Emperor  Decius 
(a.d.  250)  organised  a  serious  persecution,  which  made  many 
martyrs  and  even  more  apostates,  known  as  Libt'llatici,  persons 
who  had  received  a  lihelhis  or  certificate  for  having  given  in 
their  adhesion  to  paganism.  Bishops  of  Rome,  Jerusalem  and 
Antioch  were  put  to  death.  Origen,the  great  Christian  scholar 
of  Alexandria,  narrowly  escaped  the  executioner  (a.d.  249). 
Cyprian,  Bishop  of  Carthage,  fell  a  victim  to  the  persecution, 
which  broke  out  afresh  under  Valerian  (a.d.  258).  The  position 
of  the  Christians  improved  somewhat  under  Gallienus,  who 
restored  their  churches  to  them,  but  this  lull  in  the  storm  was 
of  short  duration.  Diocletian  began  by  following  the  example 
of  Decius  with  a  veritable  frenzy  (a.d.  303) ;  but  he  soon 
recognised  the  futility  of  his  efforts,  and  abdicated.  His 
successors  were  weaker,  if  not  more  tolerant. 

23.  Christianity  had  now  become  such  a  power  in  the  Empire 
that  the  ambitious  Constantine  sought  its  support.  After 
vanquishing  Maxentius  at  the  bridge  of  Milvius,  where  he  had 
displayed  a  standard  in  the  form  of  a  cross  (the  laharum)^  he 
promulgated  an  edict  of  toleration  in  313,  which  practically 
gave  Christianity  a  privileged  position.  Constantius  removed 
the  statue  of  Victory  from  the  Senate-chamber  (356),  and  began 

£ 


50       A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

the  overthrow  of  the  images  of  the  gods  in  the  East.  After  his 
death  in  a.d.  361,  a  pagan  reaction  took  place  under  Julian, 
but  a  reaction  of  a  peaceful  nature,  for  Julian,  the  mildest  of 
men,  was  content  merely  to  take  the  direction  of  education  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  Christians.  He  did  justice  to  Christianity, 
nevertheless,  and  exhorted  the  pagans  to  imitate  its  charitable 
institutions.  His  premature  death  in  363  was  the  signal  for 
the  downfall  of  polytheism  ;  it  retained  adherents  only  in  the 
aristocracy,  the  great  schools,  and  the  conservative  population 
of  country  districts.^ 

24.  Theodosius  prohibited  heathen  sacrifices,  and  in  spite  of 
the  eloquent  protestations  of  Libanius,  ordered  the  temples  to 
be  closed  (a.d.  391).  The  zeal  of  the  monks  manifested  itself 
against  these  buildings,  notably  in  Egypt.  In  408,  Honorius 
forbade  pagans  to  hold  public  office ;  under  Theodosius  11.,  the 
fanatic  Cyril,  whom  the  Church  has  canonised,  relentlessly 
pursued  the  learned  Hypatia,  the  daughter  of  the  mathematician 
Theon ;  she  was  stoned  and  torn  in  pieces  by  the  populace  in 
the  streets  of  Alexandria  (a.d.  415).  Victorious  Christianity 
waged  war  upon  science ;  Justinian  took  but  one  step  in 
advance  when  he  closed  the  school  of  Athens  (a.d.  529).  The 
world  was  ripe  for  the  Middle  Ages. 

25.  The  end  of  the  persecutions  gave  rise  in  Africa  to  an 

original  schism,  that  of  the  Donatists,  one  of  the  first  to  attack, 

not  the  doctrine,  but  the  discipline  of  the  Church.     It  was  a 

schism  before  being  a  heresy.     Could  the  bishops  who,  during 

the  persecution,  had  given  up  the  Scriptures  to  be  burnt,  and 

those  who  had  received  ordination  from  them,  be  considered  as 

lawfully  invested  with  their  powers  ?     Was  it  not  necessary  to 

baptise  afresh  those  whom  they  had  baptised  ?    In  other  words, 

does  the  efficacy  of  the  sacerdotal  ministry  depend  on  the  personal 

character  of  the  minister.?     If  the  Church  had  replied  in  the 

affirmative,  her  ruin  would  have  been  assured,  for  every  bishop 

would  have  had  to  justify  himself  against  accusations  directed 

not  only  against  his  own  conduct,  but  against  that  of  the  bishop 

who  had  ordained  him,  and  the  whole  array  of  his  spiritual 


1 
1917 


Pagani,  hence  pagans  and  the  French  palen.     See  J.  Zeiller,   Paganus, 


FROM   ST.   PAUL  TO   JUSTINIAN  51 

ancestors.  The  good  sense  of  the  Church,  in  conformity  with 
its  interests,  preserved  it  from  this  pitfall ;  but  this  did  not 
satisfy  the  Africans,  who  were  naturally  turbulent  and  often 
hostile  to  their  bishops.  A  bishop  of  Carthage,  Donatus, 
placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  movement  (a.d,  313),  which 
soon  attracted  not  only  the  adversaries  of  the  clergy,  but  the 
ruined  farmers,  the  oppressed  peasantry,  and  the  vagabonds 
known  as  CircumceUiojies.  Donatism  assumed  the  character  of 
a  Jacquerie.  The  Emperors  first  attempted  to  stem  the  torrent 
by  pacific  means;  then  they  had  recourse  to  the  extremes  of 
violence.  Donatus  died  in  exile  and  his  followers  were  massacred. 
The  agitation  broke  out  afresh  under  Julian,  and  in  thirty  years 
had  spread  throughout  the  greater  part  of  Roman  Africa.  In 
393,  St.  Augustine  embarked  on  a  long  literary  campaign 
against  the  Donatists,  which  was  interrupted  in  403  by  a  new 
insurrection  of  the  Circumcelliones.  The  authority  of  the 
illustrious  Bishop  of  Hippo,  seconded  by  very  severe  imperial 
edicts,  finally  overcame  the  schism  (418).  But  it  reappeared 
under  the  Vandals,  and  a  few  groups  of  Donatists  still  existed 
at  the  time  of  the  Musulman  conquest. 

26.  During  the  Decian  persecution,  many  Egyptian  Christians 
had  withdrawn  to  the  desert,  where  they  lived  as  hermits  (from 
eremos,  desert).  Others  followed,  who  formed  themselves  into 
communities  (cenobites,  from  kobios  bios,  life  in  common).  Thus 
arose  Christian  monachism,  which,  indeed,  had  precedents  both 
among  Jews  and  Greeks.  The  Essenes  of  the  time  of  Jesus 
and  the  Pythagoreans  of  Southern  Italy  about  600  b.c.  had 
lived  as  veritable  cenobites.  About  a.d.  340  St.  Pachomius, 
or  Pachonius,  founded  convents  for  women,  who  were  called 
nuns  {non  nupkv,  not  married),  on  the  same  lines  as  the 
monasteries  for  men.  Monasticism  reached  the  West  about 
the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  Here,  conforming  to  the 
temperament  of  the  people,  it  assumed  a  less  contemplative 
and  more  practical  character.  St.  Benedict  of  Nursia  (480-543) 
has  the  credit  of  having  imposed  poverty  and  manual  labour 
upon  the  cenobites,  together  with  a  severe  discipline ;  the 
monastery  founded  by  him  on  Monte  Cassino  became  the 
model  of  Benedictine  monasteries,  where,  according  to  a  famous 


52      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

formula,  "he  who  works,  prays."  Civilisation  owes  to  the 
Western  monks  the  cultivation  of  a  part  of  Europe,  and  the 
preservation  of  Latin  literature,  the  texts  of  which  were  copied 
in  the  monasteries.  If  idle  and  luxurious  habits  tended  to 
appear  in  the  monasteries,  in  spite  of  perpetual  efforts  for  their 
i-eform,  this  was  an  effect  of  human  weakness  for  which  the 
institution  must  not  be  held  responsible.  In  the  course  of 
centuries  it  did  much  harm,but  also,  especially  at  the  beginning, 
a  great  deal  of  good. 

•  •  •  •  • 

27.  The  example  of  the  monks,  added  to  the  influence  of 
Manichaean,  Gnostic,  and  Montanist  doctrines,  tended  to  exalt 
the  old  popular  idea  of  the  superiority  of  a  celibate  life.  As 
early  as  305,  the  Spanish  Council  of  Elvira  enjoined  the  celibacy 
of  the  priesthood.  This  doctrine  did  not  gain  a  complete 
victoi-y  until  the  twelfth  century,  and  even  now  ecclesiastical 
celibacy  is  a  matter  of  discipline,  not  of  dogma,  in  the  Roman 
Church.  Other  Oriental  influences,  more  important  still, 
modified  the  organisation  of  the  Church  during  the  fourth 
century.  Following  the  example  of  the  Empire,  she  adopted 
a  rigorous  hierarchy ;  the  bishops  of  the  large  towns  became 
prefects,  presiding  over  the  councils  or  assemblies  of  the  pro- 
vincial clergy.  Rome,  Antioch,  and  Alexandria,  but  especially 
the  first  named,  became  as  it  were  Christian  capitals ;  by  the 
end  of  the  second  century,  a  bishop  of  Rome  was  threatening 
to  put  the  churches  of  Asia  Minor  "  outside  the  catholic  union "" 
(that  is  to  say,  the  universal  union)  because  they  differed  from 
him  as  to  the  fixation  of  the  date  of  Easter.  Christian  rites 
were  complicated  by  hardly  disguised  borrowings  from  paganism  : 
baptism  implied  the  exoi'cism  of  devils  ;  the  worship  of  mai'tyrs, 
the  origin  of  the  worship  of  saints,  took  the  place  of  the 
worship  of  the  Greek  heroes,  and  sometimes  adopted  even 
their  names  and  their  legends.  The  festival  of  Christmas  or 
of  the  birth  of  Jesus,  the  date  of  which  is  not  indicated  by  the 
Evangelists,  was  fixed  on  December  25,  the  reputed  date  of  the 
birth  of  Mithra,  who  was  identified  with  the  Sun.  Finally,  the 
Church  forgot  her  Jewish  origin  more  and  more,  and  changed 
the  character  of  the  festivals  she  was  obliged  to  retain.     Pasch 


FROM   ST.   PAUL   TO   JUSTINIAN  53 

(Pesach),  the  Easter  festival,  became  the  anniversary  of  Christ's 
Resurrection,  and  the  date  was  fixed  to  avoid  coincidence  with 
the  Jewish  Passover ;  Pentecost,  which  among  the  Jews  com- 
memorated the  giving  of  the  Law  to  Moses  upon  Sinai,  was 
henceforth  to  recall  the  pouring  out  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon 
the  Apostles.  The  Church,  though  even  more  hostile  to 
Hellenism  than  to  Judaism,  became  hellenised  by  force  of  cir- 
cumstances, because,  ever  since  its  origin  under  St.  Paul,  it  had 
appeared  as  a  Greek  sect  of  Judaism.  The  transference  of  the 
seat  of  the  Empire  to  Constantinople,  a  Greek  centre  over-in- 
clined to  theological  subtleties,  where  the  disputes  of  the  sophists 
still  re-echoed,  contributed  a  good  deal  to  this  development. 

28.  As  soon  as  Christianity  felt  itself  master  of  the  Empire, 
it  began  to  persecute  not  only  the  pagans,  but  dissident 
Christians.  The  disputes  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries 
related  more  especially  to  the  connection  of  Christ  with  God  ; 
were  they  of  the  same  substance .''  Was  Jesus  equal  to  the 
Father  ?  What  place  was  to  be  assigned  to  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
this  system  ?  A  Bishop  of  Antioch,  Paul  of  Samosata,  a  protege 
of  the  learned  Zenobia,  Queen  of  Palmyra,  who  definitely  sub- 
ordinated Jesus  to  God,  was  condemned  by  a  council  and 
deposed  (a.d.  270).  Arius,  a  priest  of  Alexandria  (a.d.  280- 
336),  engaged  in  a  long  conflict  with  Athanasius,  the  bishop 
of  that  city  (a.d.  328),  because  he  maintained  the  essential 
superiority  of  God  to  Jesus.  This  doctrine,  known  as  the  Arian 
heresy,  was  condennied  in  325  by  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  which 
declared  Jesus  to  be  :  "  the  Son  of  God,  of  the  substance  of  the 
Father,  consubstantial  with  him,  begotten,  not  born,  eternal 
like  the  Father,  and  immutable  by  nature."  In  spite  of  this 
luminous  definition,  to  which  Constantine  lent  the  support  of 
the  secular  arm — Arius  was  exiled  and  his  books  were  burnt — 
Arianism  spread  not  only  in  the  Empire,  but  beyond  it ;  nearly 
all  the  barbarian  peoples  who  invaded  the  frontiers  in  the  fifth 
century  became  Arians,  no  doubt  because  they  were  evangelised 
by  the  Arians  at  a  time  when  Arianism  was  dominant  in  the 
Empire.  Several  of  the  Roman  Emperors  of  the  fourth  century 
were  themselves  favourable  to  Arianism,  which  was  combated 
by  St.  Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan.     The  Church  of  Rome  had 


64      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

pronounced  against  Arianisni  at  an  early  date ;  at  the  Council 
of  Constantinople  (a.d.  381),  which  completed  the  work  of  the 
Council  of  Nicaea  by  declaring  the  Holy  Spirit  the  third  person 
of  the  Trinity,  equal  to  the  Father  and  the  Son,  it  gained  a 
decisive  victory.  Thus  a  third  God  was  created  as  it  were,  by 
the  evolution  of  Plato's  Logos,  through  Philo,  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  and  the  sophistical  theology  of  Alexandria. 

29.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  formulated  by  the 
Symbol  or  creed,  erroneously  ascribed  to  Athanasius,  and  per- 
haps the  work  of  the  African  bishop  Vigilius  (c.  490) :  "  We 
worship  one  God  in  Trinity  and  Trinity  in  Unity,  neither 
confounding  the  Persons  nor  dividing  the  substance.  .  .  .  And 
yet  they  are  not  three  Eternals  but  one  Eternal,  not  three 
Almighties  but  one  Almighty.  So  the  Father  is  God,  the  Son 
God,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  God,  and  yet  they  are  not  three  Gods 
but  one  God.  .  .  .  For  like  as  we  are  compelled  by  the  Christian 
verity  to  acknowledge  every  Person  by  himself  to  be  God  and 
Lord,  so  are  we  forbidden  by  the  Catholic  Religion  to  say  : 
There  be  three  Gods  or  three  Lords.  The  Father  is  made  of 
none  :  neither  created  nor  begotten.  The  Son  is  of  the  Father 
alone :  not  made,  nor  created,  but  begotten.  The  Holy  Ghost 
is  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  :  neither  made,  nor  created,  nor 
begotten,  but  proceeding.  .  .  .  And  in  this  Trinity  none  is 
afore  or  after  other :  none  is  greater  or  less  than  another ;  but 
the  whole  three  Persons  are  co-eternal  together  and  co-equal." 
Such  is  the  belief  it  is  necessary  to  hold  if  we  would  be 
Catholics  and  not  Arians.  In  these  days  there  are  no  professed 
Arians,  perhaps  because  all  Christians  are  Arians  at  heart. 
This  is  more  especially  true  of  the  Protestants,  among  whom 
the  idea  of  God  is  still  vital;  for  the  Catholics  habitually 
invoke  Jesus,  Mary  and  Joseph  (JMJ,  "the  Jesuit  Trinity"), 
and  only  name  the  Eternal  Father  mechanically.  The  Holy 
Ghost  has  always  remained  an  abstraction.  Thus  the  ancient 
Trinity  subsists  merely  as  a  theological  formula. 

30.  Meanwhile,  the  long  series  of  judicial  murders  for  errors 
of  opinion  had  been  inaugurated.  From  380  to  395  Theodosius 
published  edicts  threatening  the  heresiarchs  with  death ;  but 
it  was  reserved  for   his  co-regent,  Maximus,  a  Spaniard  like 


FROM   ST.   PAUL   TO   JUSTINIAN  55 

himself,  to  apply  them  for  the  first  time.  The  victim  was 
Priscillian,  a  Spanish  bishop,  who  was  accused  of  Manichaeism 
and  denounced  by  two  Spanish  bishops  to  the  Emperor 
Maximus,  then  at  Treves.  Priscillian,  condemned  by  a  council 
at  Bordeaux,  was  summoned  to  Treves  with  six  of  his  principal 
partisans;  they  were  there  judged  and  put  to  death  (385). 
The  excellent  St.  Martin  of  Tours  was  indignant,  as  was  also 
St.  Ambrose ;  but  a  few  years  later,  St.  Jerome,  exasperated  by 
Vigilantius,  who  attacked  the  worship  of  relics,  declared  that 
temporal  chastisements  are  useful  to  save  the  guilty  from 
eternal  perdition.  The  Church  of  Africa  and  St.  Augustine 
appealed  to  the  secular  arm  against  the  Donatists  ;  ^  finally,  in 
447,  Pope  Leo  I.  not  only  justified  the  crime  of  Maximus,  but 
declared  that  if  the  upholders  of  a  damnable  heresy  were  allowed 
to  live  there  would  be  an  end  of  all  laws,  human  and  divine. 
The  Church,  adopting  this  monstrous  doctrine,  caused  torrents 
of  blood  to  be  shed  by  the  secular  power  down  to  the  day 
when  in  its  tardy  enlightenment  the  latter  refused  to  lend 
itself  any  longer  to  the  fury  of  theological  hate. 

3L  The  Arian  quarrel  had  not  exhausted  the  diflficulties 
suggested  by  the  incarnation  of  Jesus  ?  Was  Mary  the  Mother 
of  God  ?  No,  said  Nestorius,  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  ; 
she  was  only  the  Mother  of  Christ,  In  431,  at  the  Council  of 
Ephesus,  Cyril  procured  the  deposition  of  Nestorius,  who  died 
in  Egypt ;  his  adherents  founded  in  Persia  the  Nestorian  Church, 
which  still  exists.  Another  question  which  arose  was  this : 
were  there  two  natures  in  Jesus,  one  divine  and  one  human,  or 
only  one  ?  The  second  thesis,  called  Monophysism,  upheld  by 
the  Egyptian  monks,  was  submitted  to  the  Council  of  Ephesus 
(a.d.  449) ;  this  time  the  Emperor  Theodosius  II.  sent  troops 
and  the  adversaries  of  Monophysism  were  treated  with  the 
utmost  violence.  The  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  died  of  his 
wounds.  This  Council  is  known  in  history  as  the  Brigandage 
of  Ephesus.  Another  Council  in  a.d.  451  pronounced  against 
Monophysism,  but  declared  at  the  same  time  that  the  humanity 
of  Jesus   was   not   absorbed   by  his   divinity.      The   struggle 

^  St.  Augustine  did  uot  admit  that  heretics  should  be  put  to  death ;  but 
he  insisted  on  their  punishment.     See  Batiflol,  Btvue  biblique,  1915,  p.  318. 


56      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

began  afresh  under  Justinian,  who  had  a  taste  for  theology, 
and  became  a  Monophysite  only  less  fervid  than  his  consort, 
Theodora.  He  bore  down  the  resistance  of  Pope  Vigilius,  and 
caused  his  own  opinions  to  be  confirmed  by  a  whole  series 
of  councils.  After  his  death,  the  Monophysites  were  again 
defeated ;  but  their  doctrine  has  survived,  notably  in  the 
Christian  Church  of  Egypt,  the  Coptic  connnunity,  which 
preserved  its  religious  independence  as  a  result  of  this  schism. 

•  «  •  •  • 

32.  We  have  already  seen  St.  Augustine  in  conflict  with 
African  Donatism,  and  with  Manichaeism,  which  he  had  some 
time  professed  himself.  A  quarrel  no  less  serious  arose  over 
the  doctrine  of  the  British  monk  Pelagius,  which  attacked  the 
theory  of  original  sin.  How  could  the  whole  human  race  have 
been  condemned  for  the  sin  of  Adam  ?  How  could  the  results 
of  his  fault  still  weigh  upon  innocent  creatures  ?  Augustine, 
now  an  old  man,  combated  these  reasonable  objections  by  an 
exaggeration  of  St.  Paul's  cruel  paradox.  Man  can  do  nothing 
of  his  own  will ;  he  is  utterly  powerless  ;  the  grace  of  God  alone 
can  save  him,  and  those  who  are  not  chosen  by  God  are  lost. 
The  logical  consequence  is  not  fatalism,  but  the  imperative 
necessity  of  faitli,  prayer,  and  appeals  to  intercessory  saints. 
The  Council  of  Ephesus  condemned  Pelagius  (431),  who  had 
already  been  condemned  at  Carthage  in  412.  Nevertheless, 
his  doctrine,  somewhat  modified,  survived  in  semi-Pelagianism, 
notably  in  Gaul,  and  Rome  ended  by  adopting  in  practice  a 
conciliatory  attitude  founded  upon  subtle  distinctions  concerning 
the  efficacy  of  grace,  and  the  equal  necessity  for  faith  and 
works  in  the  individual  working  out  of  salvation. 

33.  St.  Augustine  had  held  that  there  was  an  intermediate 
state  of  probation  between  future  felicity  and  damnation,  that 
of  the  purification  ot  souls  by  fire.  This  is  the  Orphic  and 
Virgilian  doctrine  of  Purgatory :  there  is  not  a  word  about 
it  in  the  Gospels.  But  as  the  Last  Judgment,  with  the  final 
separation  of  the  good  and  bad  into  the  saved  and  the  lost,  was 
pvit  off'  to  a  very  remote  period,  it  became  necessary  to  invent 
something  to  define  the  condition  of  souls  immediately  after 
death.     In  imitation  of  the  pagans,  who  represented  them  as 


FROM   ST.    PAUL   TO   JUSTINIAN  57 

appearing  for  judgment  before  Minos  and  his  assessors,  a  pro- 
visional judgment  was  suggested,  followed  by  the  classification 
of  the  dead  in  two  divisions,  the  good,  who  have  to  undergo  the 
probation  of  Purgatory,  and  the  wicked,  who  go  straight  to 
Hell.  The  Church  had  formed  the  habit  of  praying  for  the 
dead,  and  involving  the  intercession  of  the  saints  in  their  favour. 
The  implication  was  that  the  dead  required  the  good  offices  of 
the  living,  and  that  their  fate  was  not  irrevocably  sealed.  The 
doctrine  of  Purgatory,  the  logic  of  which  is  undeniable,  was 
formulated  in  the  sixth  century,  and  proclaimed  a  dogma  of 
the  Church  by  the  Council  of  Florence  (1439);  the  Christians 
who  reject  it  (Protestants  and  members  of  the  Greek  Church) 
have  evidently  little  curiosity  about  the  hereafter. 

34.  St.  Jerome,  who  was  born  in  Dalmatia,  revised  the  Latin 
translations  of  the  Scriptures  by  order  of  Pope  Daniasus,  and 
made  use  of  his  personal  influence,  which  was  as  considerable  as 
his  talent,  to  win  over  the  ladies  of  the  Roman  aristocracy  to 
a  conventual  life.  "Thou  hast  become  the  mother-in-law  of 
God,"  he  wrote  to  one  of  them,  whose  daughter  had  entered  a 
nunnery,  and  was  therefore  the  bride  of  God.  Establishing 
himself  at  Bethlehem  with  his  penitents  (a.d.  385),  he  made  it 
a  centre  of  monasticism,  and  worked  unceasingly  till  the  age  of 
ninety  at  commentaries  on  the  sacred  books.  His  relations  with 
St.  Augustine  were  courteous,  but  not  without  an  undercurrent 
of  bitterness,  especially  towards  the  end. 

35.  One  of  the  adversaries  of  St.  Jerome  was  a  Pyrenean 
shepherd,  Vigilantius,  who  returned  from  a  journey  in  Italy 
and  the  Holy  Land  disgusted  with  official  Christianity.  He 
protested  vehemently  against  the  idolatrous  worship  of  images, 
the  legacy  of  paganism  to  the  Church,  a  practice  directly 
opposed  to  that  Mosaic  law  which  Jesus  came  not  to  destroy, 
but  to  fulfil.  It  was  idle  to  reply  that  these  images  were  the 
Scriptures  of  the  illiterate,  that  they  were  not  the  object  of,  but 
the  stimulus  to,  worship.  Experience  showed  that  the  majority 
of  the  faithful  confounded  (as  indeed  they  still  do)  the  sign 
with  the  thing  signified.  Vigilantius  was  no  less  hostile  to  the 
worship  of  relics,  which  had  become  at  once  a  disgrace  to  the 
Church  and  a  source  of  revenue  to  the  clergy.     Asceticism, 


58      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

prayers  for  the  dead,  the  cehbacy  of  the  clergy,  which  was 
exacted  with  increasing  rigour,  all  seemed  to  him  contrary  to 
true  religion.  Violently  attacked  by  St.  Jerome,  who  invoked 
the  severity  of  the  civil  authority  against  him,  Vigilantius  died 
in  obscurity  in  420 ;  but  his  courageous  words  bore  fruit  in  due 
season. 

36.  Two  Greeks,  St.  Gregory  Nazianzen  and  St.  Basil,  shed 
lustre  upon  the  Eastern  Church  in  the  fourth  century.  They 
were  scholars,  gentle  and  amiable  in  disposition,  whose  some- 
what effeminate  eloquence  still  has  a  certain  charm.  Basil, 
the  Bishop  of  Caesarsea,  set  an  admirable  example  of  charity, 
founding  many  hospitals  and  refuges.  Gregory  was  the  son 
of  a  bishop  of  Nazianzus  in  Cappadocia,  who  had  three  other 
children  after  his  ordination.  Gregory  became  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  but,  disgusted  with  the  intrigues  surrounding 
him,  he  returned  to  end  his  days  in  his  bishopric  of  Nazianzus. 
When  he  was  begged  to  leave  his  retreat  and  assist  at  a  new 
council,  he  replied :  "  I  never  knew  of  a  Synod  that  did  any 
good  or  prevented  any  evil." 

37.  St.  John  Chrysostom  ("  the  golden-mouthed ")  was  a 
fluent  orator,  but,  like  St.  Augustine,  above  all  things  a  man  of 
action.  Born  at  Antioch  in  347,  a  pupil  of  the  pagan  Libanius, 
he  preached  for  twelve  years  in  his  native  town.  The  Emperor 
Arcadius  appointed  him  Patriai'ch  of  Byzantium,  where  he 
engaged  in  a  memorable  campaign  against  the  Empress  Eudoxia, 
whose  extravagance  and  profligacy  he  publicly  denounced. 
Eudoxia  caused  Chrysostom  to  be  condemned  by  a  council,  but 
a  popular  insurrection  reinstated  him.  He  renewed  his  attacks 
on  the  Empress,  whom  he  compared  to  Herodias.  Hereupon 
there  was  another  council,  and  another  insurrection,  followed 
by  a  great  fire ;  Chrysostom  was  exiled  to  Cucusus  in  the 
Taurus,  and  afterwards  to  Pontus,  where  he  died  miserably  at 
Comana. 

38.  At  about  the  same  period,  St.  Ambrose,  Bishop  of 
Milan,  the  friend  of  St.  Augustine,  combated  Arianism  in  the 
person  of  the  Empress  Justina,  the  wife  of  Maximus  (386), 
refused  the  communion  to  Theodosius  and  compelled  the 
Emperor   to   do   penance    for   having   ordered   a   massacre   at 


FROM   ST.   PAUL   TO   JUSTINIAN  59 

Thessalonica.  The  spiritual  sword  was  drawn  against  the 
temporal  sword,  heralding  that  struggle  between  the  priesthood 
and  the  Empire  which  was  to  fill  the  Middle  Ages.  How 
beneficent  might  the  influence  of  the  Church  have  been  if, 
following  the  lead  of  St.  Ambrose,  she  had  used  her  power  to 
restrain  the  violence  of  princes,  instead  of  perpetually  exciting 
it  to  serve  her  own  ends  ! 

39.  Vigilantius  and  Chrysostom  agreed  in  protesting  against 
the  advance  of  luxury  in  the  life  and  habits  of  the  Church. 
This  was,  indeed,  one  of  the  inevitable  results  of  her  triumph. 
Extolling  humility  in  theory,  she  began  to  love  splendour  and 
adorned  herself  with  the  gorgeous  trappings  of  paganism. 
Magnificent  basilicas  arose  on  every  side,  which  were  all  eclipsed 
by  the  crowning  glory  of  St.  Sophia  at  Constantinople.  The 
bishops  and  the  majority  of  the  monks  lived  in  opulence,  en- 
riched by  gifts  from  the  State  and  the  devout.  Divine  service 
lost  its  first  simplicity ;  even  in  broad  daylight  the  churches 
were  resplendent  with  the  radiance  of  innumerable  candles ; 
incense  and  holy  water  were  borrowed  from  pagan  forms  of 
worship  ;  the  sacerdotal  vestments  became  magnificent,  festivals 
were  multiplied.  But  these  changes,  by  which  art  profited, 
did  not  impede  the  expansive  force  of  Christianity  ;  following 
upon  the  Empire,  the  barbarian  world  became  its  pupil,  and 
Clovis,  a  Catholic  in  the  midst  of  Arian  nations,  made  the 
cause  of  the  Roman  Church  triumph  in  Western  Europe  by 
subjugating  them  (496-Sll). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In  addition  to  the  great  church  histories  (Neander,  Rohrbacher),  now 
somewhat  antiquated,  and  the  three  volumes  of  the  Hidoire  ancicnne  dc  I'^glif-e 
by  Duchesne  (190G-1910),  consult  Hauck's  Enc^doptedia,  and  Smith  and 
Wace"s  Diet,  of  Christian  Biography.  The  following  are  useful  manuals : 
F.  Naef,  Hidoire  dc  nSglisfi  chrStienne,  1892  ;  X.  Funk,  Lehrbach  der  Kirchen- 
gescMchte,  5th  ed. ,  1907;  Kurtz,  Ahriss  der  Kirchengeschicht^,  16th  ed.,  1906; 
W.  Walker,  A  Hid.  of  the  Christian  Church,  1920  (very  good  bibliography). 

Wellhausen  (and  others),  Die  chrislliche Religion  mit  EinsMuss  der  jiidischen, 
1906;  A.  Harnack,  Lchrhuch  drr  Dogrncngrschichte,  3rd  ed.,  1S94  (there  is  an 
abridgment  by  the  author,  4th  ed.,  1906)  ;  L.  Duchesne,  Originea  du  ru/te 
chrilien,  2nd  ed. ,  1898;  0.  Bardenhewer,  Gesch.  der  altchristl.  Literahtr,  1903; 
A.  Harnack,  Die  Ucberliefni-ung  und  der  Best  and  der  altchristl.  Litcratur  his 
Eusebius,  1899;  Die  Chronologic  der  altchristl.  Literatur,  2  vols.,  1897-1904; 
A.  Denzinger,  Enchiridion  symbolorum  et  definitionum,  9th  ed.,  1900  (in  Latin) ; 
Labauche,  Lemons  de  thiologie  dogmatiqiu,  1908. 


60      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

1.  Ch.  Guignebert,  Le  christianisme  antique,  1920. — Pre-pauline  propaganda : 
Loisy,  Hev.  hist.  lift.  rcL,  1921,  p.  431. 

2.  Renan,  S.  Paul,  1869. 

7.  Supposed  death  of  Peter  in  Palestine :  art.  Fctrus,  in  Hauck,  p.  201, 
43. — Guignebert,  La  primautd  de  Pierre,  1909. 

8.  Harnack,  Mission  und  Aushreitxmg  dcs  Christentums,  2nd  ed.,  2  vols., 
1906  {cf.  Monceaux,  /.  dcs  Sav.,  1904,  p.  404). 

9.  Brehier,  Philon,  1908 ;  E.  de  Faye,  Introd.  A  V&ude  du  gnosticisme, 
1903  ;  Bousset,  Gnosis,  in  Pauly-Wissowa's  Encycl. ;  Bonaiuto,  Lo  gnosticismo, 
1907. 

10.  E.  von  Dobschiitz,  Die  urchristlichcn  Gemeindcn,  1902;  A.  Rdville, 
L'Uucharistie,  1908  (same  subject  by  M.  Goguel,  1910) ;  Eatiffol,  L'agajje  (in 
Jlisf.  et  Ihdologie,  p.  227) ;  art.  Agape  in  Cabrol's  Dictionnaire. 

11.  Glossolaly  and  the  supposed  gifts  of  prophecj^ :  art.  Sinrit^ial  Gifts 
in  Cheyne. 

12.  Harnack,  op.  cit.  under  8. — The  synagogues  as  nurseries  of  Christi- 
anity :  S.  R.,  Cultes,  vol.  iii. ,  p.  449. 

13.  Allard,  Hist,  des  pers^-ntions  pendant  les  frois  premiers  sikles,  5  vols., 
1894-1903;  Julien  I'Apostat,  3  vols.,  1900-1903;  Le  christianisme  et  I'empire 
de  Ndron  d  TModose,  5th  ed.,  1903;  Dix  leg  ms  sur  le  martyre,  1906;  B.  Aub6, 
Hist,  dcs  pcrsdcutions,  4  vols.,  1875-1885;  G.  Boissier,  La  fin  du  paganisme, 
2  vols.,  1891 ;  Uincejidie  de  Rome  et  la  premiere  persecution  (in  Journ.  des  Sav., 
1902,  p.  158) ;  E.  Chenon,  Les  rapports  de  V^glisc  et  de  V^tat  du  /"■  au  XX' 
siecle.  1905  (good  summary);  A.  Harnack,  Per  Vorvurf  des  Atheismus,  1905; 
Le  Blant,  Les  pers^cuteurs  et  les  martyrs,  1893;  Leclercq,  Zcs  Martyrs,  1902 
ct  seq.  ;  Ramsay,  The  Church  in  the  Roman  E7npirc,  6th  ed.,  1900. 

14.  Art.  Trajaniis  in  the  Diet,  of  Christian  Biography. — Glut  in  the  cattle- 
market  of  Bithynia :  S.  R.,  Cultes,  vol.  i.,  p.  395  (after  Ramsay). 

15-16.  Th.  Mommsen,  Der  Rcligionsjrevcl  orach  rom.  Recht  (in  Hist.  Zcit- 
schriff,  1890,  p.  389);  Bouch^-Leclercq,  L' intolerance  et  la  2}olitiqur,  1911; 
art.  Accusations  in  Cabrol's  Dictionnaire. — P.  de  LabrioUe,  Hist,  de  la  lift, 
latine  chritieyme,  1919. — The  Jewish  community  and  the  martyrs  of  Lyons: 
S.  R.,  Cultes,  vol.  iii.,  p.  449. — Celsus  and  his  Logos  Alethes  (True  Discourse) : 
Aub(^,  Hist,  des  Persic,  vol.  ii.,  p.  118;  A.  Dide,  La  fin  des  religions,  p.  162. — 
For  the  lost  book  of  Julian  see  Allard's  work  quoted  above,  §  13. 

18.  Allard.  Les  esclaves  chreticns,  1876. 

19.  Art.  Marcion  and  Apostolischcs  Symbolum  in  Hauck. — Harnack,  Das 
Evangelium  .  .  .  Marcion,  1921. — E.  de  Faye,  CUment  d^Alexandrie,  1898. — 
J.  Denis,  Philosophic  d'Origbie,  1884  [cf.  Journ.  dcs  Sav.,  1884,  p.  177). 

20.  Art.   Verfassung  (urchristliche)  in  Hauck. 

21.  G.  de  Labriolle,  La  crise  montaniste,  1913. 

22.  Renegades  and  Libellatici :  Aubt\  USglise  ct  V^lat,  1885,  p.  199 ; 
Foucart,  J.  des  Sav.,  April  1908. — Art.  Decius  and  Dioclctianus  in  Diet,  of 
Christian  Biograjjhy. 

23.  Boissier,  La  fin  du  paganisme,  2  vols.,  1893  (Constantine,  Jiilian,  etc.). 

24.  Chastel,  Hist,  de  la  destruction  du  paganisme,  1850;  V.  Schultze,  Gesch. 
d<s  Untergangs  des  Heidentums,  2  vols.,  1887-1892, — Art.  Cyrillus  and  Hypatia 
in  Diet,  of  Christian  Biography. 

25.  Monceaux,  Histoire  litf4raire  du  V Afriquc  chritienve,4:  vols.,  1901-1912; 
H.  Leclercq,  UAfriqu,t  chriticnne,  2  vols.,  1904. — Art.  Afrique  in  Cabrol,  and 
Douatism.us  in  Hauck. 

26.  A.  Harnack,  Das  Monchtum,  1901 ;  W.  H.  Mackean,  Ohristian  Monasti- 
cism  in  Egypt,  1920;  C.  Butler,  Benedictine  monachism,  1919;  E.  Lesne,  ITist. 
de  la  propiritti  cccUs.  en  France,  vol.  i. ,  1910. 

27.  Lea,  History  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy,  3rd  ed.,  vol.  i.,  1907. — Saintyves, 
Jj'S  saints  successeiirs  dcs  dieux,  1908;  H.  Delehaye,  Origine  du  ndte  des  Martyrs, 
1912;  E.  Lucius,  Anfaenge  des  Heiligen  Kultcs,  1905. — Th.  Reinach,  La  fete  de 
Pdques,  1900;  A.  Meyer,   TVeihnachisfe.st,  1911. 

28.  A.  Dupin,  Le  dogme  de  la  Triniti,  1907;  A.  R^ville,  La  ehristologie  de 
Paid  de  Samosate  (in  Etudes  de  critique,  1896,  p.   189);   Atl<anase  et  Arius 


FROM  ST.   PAUL  TO  JUSTINIAN  61 

(Brussels,    1904). — Art.    Arianismus,   Nicaenisches  Konzil,    and    Trlnitaet    in 
Hauck. — J.  Zeiller,  Origines  chretiennes  dansles  prov.  danuhienna,  1918. 

29.  Art.  Athanashan,  in  Hauck. 

30.  Art.  PrisdlUamcs  in  Hauck. — Ch.  Babut,  PriiciUien,  1909. 

.31.  Art.  Ncstoriufi  in  Hauck,  and  R.  Duval,  V^glise  ncstorienne  (in  Jonrn. 
des  Sav.,  1904,  p.  109). — Art.  3fonophysiten,  in  Hauck. — Diehl,  Justinien, 
1901. — Art.  Koptische  Kirche  in  Hauck  (vol.  xii.,  p.  801). — Duchesne,  Mttaiujrs 
de  Rome,  1915,  p.  57  (Theodosius). 

32.  E.  Vacandard,  S.  Bernard,  new  ed.,  1904. — Art.  Pelagius  and  Sewi- 
pelagianismus  in  Hauck. 

33.  Art.  Fegfeucr  (purgatory)  in  Hauok. — Prayers  for  the  Dead  :  S.  R., 
CuUes,  vol.  i.,  p.  313. 

34.  Am.  Thierry,  S.  Jerome,  1867. 

35-36.  Art.  Vigilantius  in  Diet,  of  Christ.  Biogr. ;  Art.  Oregorius  and 
Basilius,  ibid. — A.  Reville,  Vigilance,  1902. 

37.  Am.  Thierry,  S.  Jean  Chrysostome  et  VimiJiratrice  Eadoxie,  1872; 
Puech,  S.  J.  Chnisostomc,  1891. 

38.  R.  Thamin,  S.  Ambroise,  1895. 


CHAPTER   III 

CHRISTIANin'  :     FROM    JUSTINIAN    TO    CHAKLES    V 

The  services  rendered  by  the  Church  to  medieval  society — The  conversion  of 
heathen  nations — Charlemagne  inaugurates  the  era  of  violent  proselytism 
— Pilgrimages  :  the  Crusades — The  constitution  of  the  temporal  power  of 
the  Popes — False  Decretals — Exactions  of  the  Holy  See — Excommunica- 
tion— Simony — Quarrels  of  the  Popes  and  Emperors:  Gregory  VII.,  the 
Emperor  at  Canossa— The  Popes  and  England — Innocent' III.— The 
Emperor  Frederick  II.— The  CJreat  Schism  of  the  West— The  decadence 
of  the  Papacy  in  the  fifteenth  century. 

The  monastic  orders — Franciscans  and  Dominicans — Knights  Hos- 
pitallers and  Knights  Templars. 

The  worship  of  the  Virgin — The  Immaculate  Conception — The  worship 
of  saints,  and  the  Golden  Legend — Mass — The  Eucharist— The  feast  of 
the  Holy  Sacrament — Confession,  and  the  sale  of  indulgences — Jubilees — 
The  celibacy  of  the  priesthood. 

The  Church  and  heresies — The  image-breakers  or  Iconoclasts — The 
Catharists  or  Albigenses — The  devastation  of  the  south  of  France— The 
Vaudois  or  Waldenses. 

Anselm  of  Canterbury  and  Ab(51ard  :  Scholasticism — Roger  Bacon  and 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas — The  Imitation  of  Christ — Humanism  :  Reuchlin 
and  Erasmus — Wycliff  and  John  Huss — Girolamo  Savonarola. 

The  organisation  of  the  Inquisition — The  crimes  of  the  Inquisition — 
Tortures  and  the  stake — The  persecution  of  so-called  witches. 

The  Christian  Churches  which  seceded  from  Rome :  the  so-called 
Orthodox  Church. 

1.  Medieval  society  owed  a  great  deal  to  the  Church.     To 
deny  this  is  to  make  a  miracle  of  her  duration. 

2.  In  the  first  place,  the  Church  propagated  the  Gospel. 
Not  that  she  practised  it,  or  commended  the  study  of  it.  But 
its  principles  were  on  her  lips,  a  germ  of  humanity,  a  check 
upon  barbarism.  She  also  acted  upon  the  inspiration  of  the 
Gospel  in  her  charitable  works,  which  Julian  had  held  up 
to  the  admiration  of  the  heathen.  True,  her  charity  was  not 
always  judicious.  She  gave  freely  and  indiscriminately,  and 
so  encouraged  mendicity.  But  both  in  the  East  and  the  West 
she  multiplied  hospitals,  orphanages  and  asylums.  AVhen  we 
remember  that  the  Emperor  Claudius  had  to  make  a  law 
forbidding  people  to  abandon  their  sick  slaves  and  cast  them 

62 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  63 

out  to  starve  by  the  roadside,  we  realise  that  the  Church, 
though  intent,  not  on  a  social  duty,  but  on  spiritual  salvation, 
was  more  humane  than  lettered  paganism. 

3.  The  Church  further  gave  or  imposed  upon  Europe  the 
external  forms  of  Christianity.  It  is,  relatively,  a  simple  creed, 
not  overcharged  with  festivals,  nor  encumbered  by  alimentary 
prohibitions  ;  it  does  not  demand  too  much  of  its  adherents  ; 
it  suits  laborious  races.  Activity  was,  indeed,  generally  en- 
joined as  a  duty  by  the  Church,  even  to  its  monks  ;  Christianity 
is  not,  or  has  only  occasionally  been,  a  religion  of  parasites  and 
sluggards. 

4.  Although  the  Church  of  Christ  perpetually  had  recourse 
to  violence  and  shed  more  blood  than  all  secular  ambitions, 
because  she  shared  them,  she  at  least  affirmed  the  superiority  of 
the  spirit  to  mere  brute  force,  at  a  period  when  might  was  by 
no  means  at  the  service  of  right.  The  bishops  were  the  pro- 
tectors, somewhat  capricious  no  doubt,  but  effectual,  of  the 
weak  and  oppressed.  The  Church  taught  kings  mercy.  As 
early  as  the  tenth  century  she  established  truces  (the  Peace  of 
God),  intervals  in  private  warfare  ;  she  was  not,  it  is  true,  the 
first  or  the  only  power  who  did  so  ;  but  we  must  give  her  the 
ci'edit  due  for  having  revived  this  ancient  custom,  at  a  time  of 
universal  massacre  and  pillage. 

5.  Without  any  deliberate  intention  of  preserving  the 
literary  masterpieces  of  antiquity,  she  had  a  great  many  of 
them  copied  in  her  monasteries,  just  as  she  saved  many  master- 
pieces of  art  in  the  treasuries  of  her  churches.  Her  worship 
demanded  magnificence  ;  artists  worked  for  her  glory  and  our 
delight. 

6.  Finally,  at  a  time  when  society  was  divided  into  castes, 
when  there  were  nobles,  villeins  and  serfs,  she  upheld  the 
principle  of  the  equality  of  all  men  before  God,  and  urged  the 
essential  dignity  of  the  most  wretched,  since  Christ  had  shed 
his  blood  for  their  salvation.  The  Church  was  the  refuge  of 
talent.  She  placed  at  her  head,  supreme  over  kings,  the  son 
of  a  workman,  or  even  the  son  of  a  beggar.  It  was  not  necessary 
to  be  of  noble  birth  to  become  a  bishop,  a  cardinal,  or  a  pope. 
Monarchical  at  its  summit,  the  Church  was  democratic  at  its 


64      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

base ;  it  was  never  aristocratic.  This  fact  was  clearly  recognised 
by  Voltaire :  "  The  Roman  Church  has  always  enjoyed  the 
advantage  of  being  free  to  give  to  merit  what  was  elsewhere 
reserved  for  birth  ;  and  it  is  even  noteworthy  that  the  haughtiest 
among  the  Popes  (Gregory  VII.  and  Adrian  IV.)  were  those  of 
the  humblest  origin.  In  Germany,  there  are  still  convents 
which  admit  only  persons  of  noble  birth.  The  spirit  of  Rome 
is  marked  by  more  grandeur  and  less  vanity." 

•  •  •  •  ■ 

7.  The  prodigiously  rapid  establishment  of  the  Arab  Empire 
was  the  first  blow  struck  at  the  power  of  the  Church  ;  Christi- 
anity retreated,  for  the  first  time,  in  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  North 
Africa  and  Spain  (710).  In  Spain  alone,  centres  of  resistance 
were  soon  formed,  which  became  triumphant  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  But  the  Christian  princes  never  invoked  the  aid  of  a 
Crusade  ;  this  is  remarkable  as  showing  that  even  in  Spain  the 
behaviour  of  the  Soldiers  of  the  Cross  was  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge. 

8.  Powerless  against  Islam,  the  Church  was  successful  every- 
where else  in  her  great  work  of  proselytism  among  the  Gentiles. 
Her  best  missionaries  were  the  monks  of  Ireland,  which  had 
been  evangelised  by  St.  Patrick  (450),  and  was  called  the  Isle 
of  Saints  ;  they  were  the  first  militia  of  the  Church  in  Western 
Europe.  After  converting  the  Franks,  who  were  baptised  by 
St.  Remigius  (496),  she  christianised  the  Anglo-Saxons  by 
means  of  the  Roman  monk  Augustine  (596),  and  the  Germans 
by  means  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Winfrid,  called  St.  Boniface,  who 
was  finally  assassinated  in  Frisia  (689-755).  Many  brilliant 
conversions  were  due  to  princesses  such  as  Clotilde,  the  queen 
of  Clovis ;  Voltaire  justly  remarked  that  half  Europe  owes  its 
Christianity  to  women.  The  conversion  of  Wladimir  (988)  was 
preceded  by  that  of  his  grandmother,  the  Russian  Duchess  Olga, 
who  came  to  Constantinople  (957).  As  early  as  868,  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople  had  obtained  permission  to  found  a 
church  at  Kieff,  The  Russian  mercenaries  of  the  Imperial 
Guard,  who  became  Christians  at  Constantinople,  laboured  to 
evangelise  Russia  after  their  return  to  their  homes. 

9.  The  Byzantine   monks  Cyril  and  Methodius  baptised   a 


FROM  JUSTINIAN  TO   CHARLES   V  65 

Bulgarian  chief  in  863  ;  Cyril  translated  the  Bible  into  the  Slav 
tongue,  making  use  of  an  alphabet  derived  from  the  Greek, 
which  he  had  composed  for  the  purpose.  After  Bulgaria, 
Methodius  evangelised  Bohemia,  whence  Christianity  spread  to 
Poland  and  Hungary  (c.  lOOO).  In  the  ninth  century,  the 
Church  converted  the  Normans  and  the  Danes  of  England,  and 
then  those  of  Denmark  and  Sweden.  The  influence  of  Christi- 
anity extended  far  towards  the  East ;  the  Persian  Nestorians 
sent  missionaries  of  the  Gospel  into  Central  Asia  and  even  into 
China  (c.  600).  In  the  thirteenth  century,  Rome  took  up  the 
propaganda  of  the  Nestorians ;  a  church  was  founded  at  Pekin, 
but  was  soon  destroyed,  and  the  Mongolians,  at  first  favourable 
to  Christianity,  were  partially  converted  to  Islamism.  The 
Nestorian  Churches  perished  in  this  reaction. 

10.  Down  to  the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  the  spiritual 
victories  of  the  Church  had  entailed  no  bloodshed.  The  era  of 
violent  proselytism  was  inaugurated  by  Charlemagne,  who  gave 
the  Saxons  a  choice  between  baptism  and  death  (772-782)  and 
massacred  over  four  thousand  of  them  at  once.  The  bishops  he 
instituted  were  called  upon  to  take  cognisance  of  acts  of 
idolatry  and  to  punish  them  as  crimes ;  they  were  the  ancestors 
of  the  Inquisitors.  After  the  year  1000,  conversion  by  force 
became  general.  The  Wends  of  Pomerania  were  compelled  by 
the  Dukes  of  Poland  to  accept  baptism  ;  Pope  Honorius  decreed 
a  crusade  to  conquer  the  Prussians,  against  whom  the  Teutonic 
Knights  waged  a  war  of  extermination  (1236-1283).  The 
Brethren  of  the  Sword  treated  Livonia  and  Courland  in  the 
same  manner.  But  the  conversion  of  the  Lithuanians  was  not 
completed  till  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

•  •  •  •  ■ 

11.  The  custom  of  pilgrimages  to  the  scenes  of  the  Scrip- 
tures was  anterior  even  to  the  triumph  of  Christianity ;  thus 
Helena,  the  mother  of  Constantine,  went  to  Jerusalem,  where 
later  writers  (but  not  the  contemporary  Eusebius)  report  that 
she  discovered  the  "  ti-ue  Cross."  The  conquest  of  Syria  by  the 
Musulmans  made  these  pilgrimages  more  perilous ;  pilgrims 
returned  to  tell  moving  tales  of  the  sad  state  of  Palestine,  and 
the  evils  endured    by  the  Christians.      "Amidst   the   extreme 

F 


66      A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

sufferings  of  the  Middle  Ages,"  says  Michelet,  "  men  still  had 
tears  for  the  misery  of  Jerusalem.''  The  Papacy,  in  conjunction 
with  the  feudal  nobles,  whose  very  existence  was  due  to  war, 
accordingly  organised  those  great  military  pilgrimages  to  the 
Holy  Land  known  as  the  Crusades  (1096-1291).  Although 
these  cost  millions  of  lives,  exhausted  the  resources  of  Christian 
Europe,  aggravated  fanaticism,  exaggerated  the  worship  of  saints 
and  relics  to  the  point  of  mania,  and  encouraged  the  abuse  of 
and  traffic  in  indulgences,  they  must  be  credited  with  having 
kept  back  the  rising  flood  of  Islamism,  re-established  regular 
intercourse  with  the  East,  and  introduced  into  Western  chivalry 
ideas  somewhat  more  liberal  than  those  of  Frankish  barbarism. 
Even  the  disasters  of  the  Crusades  were  not  in  vain,  for  they 
awoke  doubts  among  the  masses  as  to  the  efficacy  of  divine 
protection  and  the  infallibility  of  the  councils  of  Rome. 
Finally,  "  liberty,  natural  to  man,  was  born  again  from  the 
want  of  money  among  the  princes.""  ^ 

12.  The  Crusaders  in  general,  "  in  spite  of  their  sacred  cause, 
behaved  like  highway  robbers."^  The  first  host  which  set  out 
in  1095,  and  was  annihilated  by  the  Turks  at  Nicaea,  killed, 
burned  and  pillaged  all  they  encountered.  The  army  com- 
manded by  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  massacred  the  entire  population 
of  Jerusalem  (1098).  The  astuteness  of  Venice  turned  aside  the 
fourth  Crusade  upon  Constantinople,  and  the  sack  of  this  city 
is  a  dark  blot  on  the  history  of  Western  Christendom  (1204). 
It  was  abominably  ravaged,  and  the  very  church  of  St.  Sophia 
was  the  scene  of  bloody  and  sacrilegious  orgies.  "  This  was  the 
first  time  that  the  city  of  Constantinople  had  been  taken  and 
sacked  by  strangers  :  it  was  done  by  Christians  who  had  vowed 
to  fight  only  against  the  infidel.""  ^ 

The  one  consolatory  element  in  the  story  is  to  be  found  in 
the  unhappy  crusades  St.  Louis  directed  upon  Egypt  and  Tunis, 
in  which  the  king,  though  a  very  indifferent  general,  showed 
himself  at  least  worthy  of  the  name  of  Christian. 

•  •  •  •  • 

13.  The  instigators  of  the  Crusades  were  always  the  Popes, 
seconded    by    monks.     As   early   as    1074,  Gregory   VII.    had 

1  Voltaire.  »  Ibid.  »  Ibid. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  67 

dreamt  of  reconquering  Anatolia,  which  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  Seljuk  Turks.  Pope  Urban  II.  appeared  at  the 
Council  of  Clermont  in  1094,  accompanied  by  a  monk  of 
Picardy,  Peter  the  Hermit,  promising  the  indulgences  of  the 
Church  to  all  who  would  go  and  fight  the  infidel.  The  second 
Crusade  was  preached  by  Eugenius  III.  and  Bernard,  Abbot  of 
Clairvaux;  the  fourth  by  Innocent  HI.  and  Foulques  of  Neuilly. 
Even  the  frantic  Children's  Crusade  (1212)  was  encouraged  by 
the  enthusiasm  of  Innocent  HI.  It  was  naturally  to  the 
interest  of  the  papacy  to  appear  thus  as  the  supreme  power 
which  set  all  the  military  forces  of  Europe  in  movement.  As 
soon  as  a  noble  had  taken  the  Cross,  he  belonged  to  the  Church. 
The  Crusader's  vow  was  indissoluble  save  by  the  Pope's  consent ; 
from  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  he  began  to  grant 
remission  for  ready  money.  In  the  crusading  armies  the  papal 
legates  became  delegates  of  a  theocracy  which  consolidated 
rapidly  and  threatened  to  absorb  civil  society  altogether.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Church  fattened  on  the  general  misery  ;  to 
obtain  the  money  necessary  for  their  enterprises,  nobles  and 
vassals  were  obliged  to  sell  their  lands,  which  the  Church 
bought  at  prices  far  below  their  value.  Thus  Godfrey  de 
Bouillon,  Duke  of  Brabant,  sold  his  estate  of  Bouillon  to  the 
Chapter  of  Liege,  and  Stenay  to  the  Bishop  of  Verdun. ^ 

In  the  twelfth  century  the  Popes  paid  tithes  on  the  church 
revenues  to  the  princes;  but  after  the  Lateran  Council  in  1215 
they  laid  claim,  as  directors  of  the  Crusades,  to  all  this  money, 
thus  creating  a  tax  which  was  levied  in  their  interest  throughout 
Christendom. 

14.  The  last  Christian  town  in  Syria,  St.  John  of  Acre,  was 
retaken  by  the  Musulmans  in  1291.  Rhodes  held  out  till  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  was  the  zeal  of  the 
Hungarians  and  Slavs,  newly  converted  to  Christianity,  and 
not  the  hopelessly  divided  forces  of  Europe,  which  arrested  the 
Turks  on  the  road  to  Central  Europe  and  Vienna.  Broadly 
speaking,  the  Crusades  were  a  failure ;  the  political  object  of 
the  papacy  was  not  realised.  The  condition  of  Christians  and 
pilgrims  in  the  Holy  Land  was  slightly  bettered    by  various 

^  Voltaire. 


68      A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

treaties;  but  the  Christian  Kingdom  of  Jerusalem  lasted  only 
eighty-eight  years,  and  the  Latin  Empire  of  Constantinople  was 
no  less  ephemeral.  When  the  Paleologi  overthrew  it  in  1261, 
they  had  to  reckon  not  only  with  Musulman  ambition,  but  with 
the  religious  hatred  of  the  West.  The  loss  of  the  Greek 
Empire  to  Christianity  (1453),  a  disaster  to  all  European 
civilisation,  was  the  final  defeat,  we  might  almost  say  the 
logical  conclusion,  of  the  Crusades. 

15.  The  ruin  of  the  Western  Empire  had  plunged  Rome 
into  poverty.  Her  bishop  (the  Pope)  and  her  parish  priests 
(the  Cardinals)  staggered  under  the  crushing  burdens  imposed 
upon  them  by  their  dignity  and  the  calls  upon  their  charity. 
The  Roman  Church  received  large  gifts  of  land  even  outside 
Italy  to  meet  these  requirements.  In  the  seventh  century  she 
was  deprived  of  nearly  all  her  possessions  by  the  disasters  of 
the  times.  Her  lands  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Rome  consti- 
tuted the  patrimony  of  St.  Peter,  called  in  later  days  the  Roman 
Province  and  Roman  Duchy.  Finally,  as  the  price  of  its 
alliance  with  Pepin  le  Bref  against  the  Lombards,  the  papacy 
obtained  a  guarantee  of  its  property,  to  which  something  was 
added  by  Charlemagne.  It  is  a  mistake,  however,  to  credit 
Pepin  with  the  foundation  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  Popes. 
They  were  at  first  his  lieutenants  and  administrators.  It  was 
not  until  the  ninth  century  that  the  papal  suzerainty  asserted 
itself,  thanks  partly  to  the  decay  of  the  Prankish  kingdom, 
partly  to  the  disorder  which  reigned  in  Italy,  and,  above  all,  to 
a  false  document,  the  pretended  donation  of  Italy  to  Pope 
Sylvester  by  the  Emperor  Constantine,  imposed  by  Pope  Adrian 
upon  Charlemagne.  It  was  not  until  the  days  of  the  Re- 
naissance that  the  forgery  was  recognised  by  the  learned 
Nicholas  of  Cues,  long  after  it  had  produced  all  the  effects 
which  might  have  been  expected  from  it. 

16.  The  papal  decisions,  entitled  canons  or  decretals,  were 
collected  about  the  year  630 ;  this  collection  was  attributed  to 
Bishop  Isidore  of  Seville.  A  second  one  was  added  about  850, 
also  in  the  name  of  Isidore.  It  is  a  series  of  impudent  forgeries, 
supporting  the  pretensions  of  the  Pope  and  the  bishops,  in 
opposition   to  the  councils,  the  synods,  and    the    civil   power. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  69 

"  The  boldest  and  most  magnificent  forgery  which  has  deceived 
the  world  for  centuries,"  Voltaire  calls  it.  The  forger,  who  was 
probably  a  bishop,  seems  to  have  been  living  in  the  diocese  of 
Tours.  Strong  in  the  possession  of  this  weapon,  the  Popes  no 
longer  had  any  competition  to  fear  in  the  spiritual  kingdom, 
and  were  hereby  encouraged  to  encroach  upon  the  temporal. 
From  852  onwards  the  False  Decretals  were  cited  as  authorities, 
and  many  among  them  still  figure  in  the  authorised  collections 
of  Canon  Law.  Definitive  proof  of  their  falsity  was  only 
brought  forward  in  1628  by  the  French  pastor  Blondel,  whose 
work  was  put  on  the  Index.  Never  yet  has  the  Papacy  ac- 
knowledged that  for  a  thousand  years  it  made  use  of  forged 
documents  to  its  own  profit. 

17.  Down  to  the  time  of  Julius  II.  the  papal  territories, 
continually  encroached  upon  by  feudal  princes,  produced 
scarcely  anything.  The  papal  revenues  consisted  of  gifts  from 
the  Universal  Church,  of  the  tithes  occasionally  conceded  by 
the  clergy,  and  the  income  from  dispensations  and  taxes.  A 
continual  want  of  funds  was  one  cause  of  the  gravest  abuses 
of  the  Holy  See— extortions,  sale  of  indulgences,  contribu- 
tions exacted  from  those  appointed  to  vacant  benefices.  John 
XXII.  instituted  a  tariff  for  sin.  By  an  unhappy  imitation 
of  the  German  penal  code,  which  allowed  criminals  to  make  a 
monev  compensation,  he  valued  theft,  murder,  and  worse,  at  a 
price,  "  and  the  men  who  were  wicked  enough  to  commit  these 
sins  were  fools  enough  to  pay  for  them."  ^  "  Lists  of  these  con- 
tributions have  been  printed  several  times  since  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  have  brought  to  light  infamies  at  once  more 
ridiculous  and  more  odious  than  anything  we  are  told  about 
the  impudent  deceptions  of  the  priests  of  antiquity."^ 

IS.  An  Anglo-Saxon  king  founded  an  ecclesiastical  college  at 
Rome,  and  to  maintain  it  imposed  on  his  subjects  a  tax  known 
as  "  Peter's  Pence"  (725).  The  first  certainly  authentic  document 
on  the  subject  is  a  letter  of  Leo  III.  Gregory  VH.  relied  upon 
this  practice  to  justify  the  inclusion  of  England  among  the  vassals 
of  the  Holy  See.  After  England,  other  northern  countries  were 
subjected  to  the  same  tax,  and  paid  it  with  more  or  less  regularity 
1  Voltaire.  *  Ihkh 


70      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

down  to  the  Reformation.  France  and  Spain  i-esisted.  The 
Denier  de  St.  Pierre^  re-established  in  I860,  had  nothing  but 
the  name  in  common  with  the  ancient  tribute.  It  used  to  bring 
in  more  than  .^^80,000  a  year  to  Leo  XIII.,  but  was  much  more 
prohfic  in  the  days  of  Pius  IX. 

19.  The  most  formidable  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  Church 
was  excommunication,  which  deprived  its  victims  of  the  sacra- 
ments and  of  all  legal  authority.  The  major  excommunication 
had  the  force  of  an  interdict.  No  one  could  speak  to  or  serve 
the  person  excommunicated  without  contamination,  and  be- 
coming anathema  himself.  When  a  prince  was  excommunicated, 
all  religious  rites  were  suspended  in  his  State.  It  was  a  strike 
declared  by  God.  Then  the  credulous  population  became  terror- 
stricken,  and  drove  their  political  chiefs  into  submission.  Thanks 
to  this  weapon  of  excommunication,  the  Popes  of  the  Middle 
Ages  were  able  to  "give"  to  their  favoured  candidates  the 
crowns  of  the  Empire,  of  Portugal,  Hungary,  Denmark, 
England,  Aragon,  Sicily,  and  finally  of  France,  which  Boniface 
VIII.,  after  having  excommunicated  Philippe  le  Bel,  gave  to 
Albert  of  Austria  by  a  Bull :  "  We  give  you,  in  the  plenitude  of 
our  power,  the  Kingdom  of  France,  which  belongs  of  right  to  the 
Emperors  of  the  West."     We  know  how  Philip  replied  (1303). 

20.  The  Popes  established  the  universal  use  of  Latin  in 
divine  service,  and  aimed  at  making  the  supremacy  of  Rome 
manifest  by  forcing  the  Roman  liturgy  upon  all.  From  the 
year  400  onwards,  the  Latin  service  appears  to  have  superseded 
the  more  ancient  Greek  in  the  churches  of  Rome.  The  Kyrie 
elelson  {Lord,  have  mercy)  of  the  Latin  service  is  a  notable 
Greek  survival. 

■  •  •  •  • 

21.  In  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  the  Papacy  passed 
through  a  period  of  shameful  disorder.  The  Rome  of  John  X. 
was  a  cloaca  in  which  the  Popes  set  the  example  of  the  worst 
misconduct.  The  priestly  functions  were  openly  sold,  a  pro- 
ceeding to  which  the  name  of  simony  was  given,  from  the  story 
of  Simon  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  (viii.  18).  This  sore  in 
the  Church  remained  open  till  the  thirteenth  century,  in  spite  of 
the  honest  efforts  of  Gregory  VII.  to  close  it.     The  Emperor 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  71 

Henry  III.  intervened,  deposed  three  Popes,  who  hurled  mutual 
anathemas  at  each  other,  and  set  in  their  place  the  worthy 
Clement,  Bishop  of  Bamberg.  Clement  was  the  first  pontiff' 
nominated  by  the  Emperor  ;  but  the  German  rulers  must  soon 
have  regretted  their  interference,  for  Rome,  in  its  turn,  wished 
to  give  laws  to  the  Germans  in  order  to  avoid  having  to  take 
laws  from  them. 

22.  The   fundamental    fact    in    the   whole   history   of  the 
Middle  Ages  is  the  papal  claim  to  the  suzerainty  of  all  States, 
in  virtue  of  the  pretension  that  the  Pope,  alone,  was  the  successor 
of  Jesus  Christ ;  while  the  German  Emperors,  on  the  other  hand, 
pretended  to  believe  that  the  kingdoms  of  Europe  were  nothing 
but  dismembered  fragments  of  the  empire  they  had  inherited 
from    the   Roman    Caesars.^      The   doctrine    of   the   universal 
suzerainty  of  the  Popes  was  never  affirmed  with  more  insistence 
than  by  Hildebi-and,  called  Gregory  VII.,  whom  legend  makes 
the  son  of  a  carpenter.     He  was  a  restless,  enterprising  spirit, 
who  sometimes  mingled  cunning  with  his  zeal  for  the  claims 
of  the  Church.     Not  only  did  he  wish  to  withdraw  the  Papacy 
from  the  guardianship  of  the  Empire  and  concentrate  in  himself 
the  power  to  nominate  and  invest  bishops :  he  even  dared  to 
excommunicate  the  Emperor  Henry  IV.,  who  resisted,  and  had 
caused  him  to  be  deposed  by  the  Council  of  Worms  (1076). 
"  All  the  world  trembled,"  says  a  chronicler  of  the  time,  "  when 
the  people  learned  the  excommunication  of  their  King."     The 
Emperor  had  no  choice  but  to  humble  himself  before  the  Pope 
at  Canossa,  after  having  been  kept  waiting,  as  the  story  goes, 
barefooted  in  the  snow  (1077).     "  Believing  himself  then,  not 
unnaturally,  master  of  the  crowns  of  the  earth,  Gregory  wrote, 
in   more  than   one  letter,  that  he  considered  it  his  duty  to 
humble  the  might  of  kings."  ^     The  quarrel  broke  out  again  as 
hotly  as  ever  after  this  lame  reconciliation  ;  Gregory  VII.  seems 
indeed  to  have  been  duped  by  the  German,  and  his  harshness 
has  no  doubt  been  exaggerated.     The  Emperor  laid  siege  to 
Rome,  which  was  saved  by   the    Norman,    Robert    Guiscard. 
But  the  Pope  had  to  fly,  and  died  miserably  at  Salerno  (1085). 
He  had  been  the  friend  and  director  of  Matilda,  Countess  of 
1  Voltaire.  «  Ibid. 


72       A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Tuscany,  who  left  her  great  estates  to  the  Papacy  after  Gregory's 
death. 

23.  An  understanding  between  the  Empire  and  the  Holy 
See — between  Ghibellines  and  Guelfs — took  long  to  establish 
and  cost  much  bloodshed.  The  conflict  ended  at  last  in  a  con- 
cordat (1122).  "  The  real  cause  of  quarrel  was  that  neither  the 
Popes  nor  the  Roman  people  wanted  emperors  in  Rome ;  the 
pretext,  which  was  put  forward  as  holy,  was  that  the  Popes, 
depositories  of  the  Church's  rights,  could  not  allow  secular 
princes  to  invest  her  bishops  with  pastoral  staff  and  ring.  It 
was  clear  enough  that  bishops,  Avho  were  the  subjects  of  princes 
and  enriched  by  them,  owed  homage  for  their  lands.  Kings  and 
emperors  did  not  pretend  to  endow  them  with  the  Holy  Ghost, 
but  they  demanded  homage  for  the  temporalities  they  had  given. 
The  ring  and  the  pastoral  staff  were  but  accessories  to  the  main 
question.  But,  as  almost  invariably  happens,  the  heart  of  the 
matter  was  neglected  and  battle  joined  over  an  irrelevant 
detail."  1 

24.  The  Papacy  showed  itself  no  less  aggressive  towards 
Henry  II.  of  England.  For  having  instigated  the  assassination 
of  Thomas  a  Becket,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  conspired 
against  him,  he  was  excommunicated  by  the  Pope,  and  driven 
to  purchase  absolution  by  enormous  concessions.  Barefooted, 
the  king  had  to  do  penance  at  the  tomb  of  the  murdered  bishop. 
To  this  same  Henry,  Pope  Adrian  IV.,  himself  an  Englishman, 
wrote :  "  It  is  not  doubted,  and  you  know  it,  that  Ireland  and 
all  those  islands  which  have  received  the  faith  belong  to  the 
Church  of  Rome ;  if  you  wish  to  enter  that  island,  to  drive  vice 
out  of  it,  to  cause  law  to  be  obeyed  and  St.  Peter's  Pence  to  be 
paid  by  every  house,  it  will  please  us  to  assign  it  to  you." 

25.  At  the  Thirteenth  Council  of  Lyons  the  English  ambas- 
sadors said  to  Innocent  IV. :  "  Through  an  Italian,  you  draw 
more  than  60,000  marks  from  the  kingdom  of  England ;  you 
have  lately  sent  us  a  legate  who  has  given  every  benefice  to 
Italians.  He  extorts  excessive  contributions  from  all  the  faith- 
ful, and  he  excommunicates  every  one  who  complains  of  these 
exactions."     The  Pope  made  no  reply,  but  proceeded  to  excom- 

^  Voltaire. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  73 

municdte  Frederick  II.  In  1255  Alexander  IV.  ordered  a 
crusade  to  be  preached  in  England  against  Manfred  of  Naples, 
and  sent  a  legate  to  collect  tithes.  "Matthew  Paris  reports 
that  the  Nuncio  collected  50,000  pounds  sterling  in  England. 
Seeing  the  English  of  to-day,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  their 
ancestors  could  have  been  so  imbecile  !  "  ^ 

26.  Gregory  VII.  found  a  worthy  successor  in  the  great 
Pope  Innocent  III.  The  son  of  a  gentleman  of  Anagni,  "  he 
finally  erected  that  edifice  of  the  temporal  power  for  which  his 
predecessors  had  been  amassing  materials  for  some  four  hundred 
years.  .  .  .  The  Roman  pontiffs  began  to  be  kings  in  fact ;  and 
religion,  aided  by  circumstances,  made  them  the  masters  of 
kings."  2  Innocent  III.  undertook,  in  the  first  place,  to  with- 
draw Italy  from  the  influence  of  Germany ;  and,  secondly,  to 
subject  all  the  rest  of  Europe  to  his  own  jurisdiction.  In  1199 
he  excommunicated  Philip  Augustus  for  repudiating  Ingeborg  ; 
in  1210  he  excommunicated  Otho  IV. ;  in  1213  he  excommuni- 
cated John  Lackland,  King  of  England.  At  one  moment  he 
stood  out,  the  uncontested  master  of  Christendom.  He  preached 
the  fourth  Crusade,  which  threw  the  Greek  Empire  into  Catholic 
hands  (1204) ;  he  let  loose  all  the  furies  of  the  crusade  against 
the  Albigenses  (1207);  from  the  fourth  Lateran  Council  he 
obtained  the  terrible  laws  against  heretics  and  Jews  (1215). 
His  successor,  Honorius  III.,  secured  the  help  of  a  formidable 
army  of  monks,  the  Dominicans,  for  the  Papacy. 

27.  The  death  of  Innocent  III.  (1216)  marks  a  turning- 
point  in  the  history  of  the  Popes.  From  this  date  onward  the 
temporal  power  shows  a  tendency  to  dwindle  before  the  resist- 
ance of  the  secular  authorities.  Frederick  II.'s  Chancellor, 
Petrus  de  Vinea,  wrote  in  support  of  the  rights  of  the  State. 
The  Emperor  himself  replied  to  an  excommunication  by  be- 
sieging Rome.  Frederick  II.,  who  made  atrocious  laws  against 
heresy,  was  himself  a  free-thinker.  "  We  have  proofs,"  wrote 
Gregory  IX.  in  1239,  "that  he  declares  publicly  that  the  world 
has  been  deceived  by  three  impostors,  Moses,  Jesus  Christ,  and 
Mahomet.  Jesus  Christ  he  places  below  the  other  two,  because, 
he  says,  they  were  glorious  in  their  lives,  while  he  was  nothing 
1  Voltaire.  «  lUd. 


74      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

but  a  man  sprung  from  the  dregs  of  the  people,  who  preached 
to  others  of  the  same  condition."  Sixty  years  later,  Philip  the 
Fair,  intent  on  the  posthumous  condemnation  of  Boniface  VIII., 
brought  fourteen  witnesses  to  declare  that  the  Pope  had  been 
heard  to  say :  "  How  profitable  this  fable  of  Christ  has  been  to 
us !  ■"  Calumny  or  not,  it  showed  a  considerable  advance 
towards  intellectual  emancipation  when  such  blasphemies 
could  be  ascribed  to  an  emperor  by  a  Pope,  and  to  a  Pope  by 
a  king. 

28.  After  the  fall  of  the  Hohenstaufens,  the  Hapsburgs 
were  but  little  disposed  to  put  up  with  the  tutelage  of  the 
Popes.  England  was  at  first  more  docile.  The  interdicted 
John  Lackland  had  to  submit  to  Rome  when  Innocent  III. 
threatened  to  award  his  kingdom  to  Philip  Augustus.  But,  in 
France,  St.  Louis  was  the  true  founder  of  that  doctrine  of  royal 
and  national  independence,  suggested  by  the  legists  of  the 
South,  which  has  since  then  been  called  Gallicanism  (the 
Pragmatic  ascribed  to  him  is,  however,  a  forgery  ^).  Philip  the 
Fair,  having  quarrelled  with  Boniface  VIII.,  who  declared  that 
every  living  creature  owed  obedience  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome, 
laughed  at  both  interdict  and  excommunication,  and  caused 
the  Pope  to  be  insulted  and  arrested  in  his  palace  at  Anagni 
(1303). 

29.  The  great  Western  schism  originated  in  1378,  as  a 
result  of  the  contest  for  the  Papacy  between  two  rival  com- 
petitors. Urban  VI.  established  himself  in  Rome  and  Clement 
VII.  at  Avignon,  where  a  French  Pope,  Clement  V.,  an  accom- 
plice in  the  judicial  murder  of  the  Templars,  had  already  lived 
under  the  haughty  protection  of  Philip  the  Fair  since  1305. 
For  sixty  years  the  Church  had  two  Popes,  and  sometimes  three. 
To  put  an  end  to  the  scandal,  the  cardinals  summoned  the  two 
Councils  of  Pisa  and  Constance.  The  former  (1409)  set  up  a 
third  Pope  against  the  other  two,  but  had  no  practical  results. 
The  latter  (1414)  ended  in  the  deposition  of  both  Popes,  and 
the  election  of  Martin  V.  (1417).     "The  Council  declared  itself 

*  A  forgery  due  to  some  jurisconsult  of  the  fifteenth  century,  put  forward  as 
a  royal  decree^of  1268.  Pragmatic  is  a  word  derived  from  the  Greek,  and 
means  an  ordinance  regulating  (religious)  affairs. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  75 

above  the  Pope,  which  was  incontestable,  as  it  had  arraigned 
him  ;  but  a  council  passes,  whereas  the  Papacy  and  its  authority 
endures."!  Unity  was  only  re-established  in  1429,  by  the 
renunciation  of  Clement  VIII.  Finally,  the  Council  of  Basle 
(1431),  which  elected  an  Anti-Pope  to  Eugenius  IV.  (1440) 
and  was  dissolved  by  him,  tried  in  vain  to  bring  about  im- 
portant reforms  in  the  Church.  The  Papacy,  supported  on  this 
occasion  by  the  Empire,  held  to  its  pretensions,  and,  strengthened 
by  the  end  of  the  great  schism,  would  only  consent  to  insufficient 
changes  for  the  better. 

30.  At  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  papal  dignity 
sank  very  low  in  the  person  of  the  Borgia  Pope,  Alexander  VI., 
a  man  of  taste  and  a  friend  to  the  arts,  but  a  debauchee  who 
scandalised  even  his  contemporaries.  His  successor,  Julius  II., 
was  an  old  man  of  great  energy,  given  to  laying  about  him 
with  his  stick,  and  more  occupied  with  war  and  politics  than 
with  the  Church.  Finally,  the  great  Renaissance  Pope,  Leo  X., 
always  surrounded  by  artists  and  men  of  letters,  gave  himself 
up  to  the  joy  of  life.  "Monks'  quarrels!"  he  cried  upon 
hearing  of  Luther's  early  outbursts.  Rome  in  his  time  was  so 
pagan,  so  in  love  with  antiquity  and  with  plastic  beauty  of 
every  kind,  that,  without  the  rude  shock  of  the  Reformation, 
she  might  well  have  led  the  cultured  world  into  the  conditions 
it  reached  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Cardinal  Peter  Bembo, 
the  Pope's  intimate  friend,  refused  to  read  the  Epistles  of  St. 
Paul,  lest,  he  declared,  they  should  contaminate  his  Ciceronian 
Latin.  The  Church's  awakening  was  terrible.  We  may  judge 
from  what  happened  during  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  of  the  enormous  force  which  lay  concealed  within  her, 
in  spite  of  her  apparent  senility  and  corruption. 

•  •  • 

31.  The  privileges  and  relative  independence  of  the  monastic 
life  attracted  the  best  Christians.  The  order  of  Cluny  was 
founded  in  France  in  the  tenth  century,  that  of  the  Camalduli 
in  Italy  in  the  eleventh.  These  orders  soon  became  possessed 
of  great  properties,  given  or  bequeathed  by  the  faithful.  The 
consequence  of  this  wealth  was  the  corruption  of  the  monks. 

^  Voltaire. 


76      A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

To  bring  about  a  reaction,  orders  were  founded  with  very  severe 
"  rules " :  the  Carthusians  by  St.  Bruno,  the  Poor  of  Christ  at 
the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  and  the  Cistercians  (monks  of 
Citeaux)  adorned  by  the  illustrious  St.  Bernard  (1091-1153). 
Other  orders,  such  as  the  Premonstrants  (1120)  and  the  Car- 
melites (1105),  continued  to  absorb  the  best  elements  of  the 
population,  thus  condemning  them  to  sterility.  Some  among 
them  rendered  great  and  signal  services;  the  Mathurins,  for 
instance,  whose  mission  it  was  to  redeem  Christian  prisoners 
from  Turkish  slavery.  This  order  was  founded  by  Jean  de 
Matha,  a  doctor  of  Paris  University,  and  encouraged  by  Pope 
Innocent  III.  But  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages  sufficiently 
proves  that  both  monks  and  nuns  were  unpopular,  and  that  the 
morality  of  convents  was  subject  to  the  gravest  suspicions.  The 
assertions  of  lay  writers  are  confirmed  by  ecclesiastical  writers, 
who  never  ceased  to  demand  the  reform  of  the  monasteries,  and 
gave  excellent  reasons  for  their  clamour. 

32.  The  fame  of  the  mendicant  orders — Franciscans  or  Cor- 
deliers, and  Dominicans— finally  eclipsed  that  of  all  the  others. 
The  mendicant  orders  formed  a  striking  innovation  on  the 
old  monastic  conception,  Monasticism  was  essentially  the 
egotistic  effort  of  the  individual  to  ensure  his  own  salvation 
while  repudiating  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  life.  It  is 
true  that,  at  a  certain  period,  monks  had  done  good  service  to 
humanity  by  leaving  their  retreats  and  carrying  Christian 
civilisation  into  regions  still  barbarous.  St.  Columba,  St.  Gall, 
St.  Willibrod  and  their  companions  were  such  pioneers.  But 
that  period  had  long  passed  away,  and  monasticism  had  de- 
clined for  centuries  into  a  state  even  worse  than  its  primitive 
egotism.  The  mendicant  orders  were  a  revelation  to  Christendom. 
Men,  it  appeared,  existed  who  were  ready  to  abandon  all  that 
made  life  sweet,  and  imitate  the  Apostles,  doing  for  nothing 
what  the  Church  failed  to  do  with  all  its  wealth  and  its  privi- 
leges !  Wandering  on  foot  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the 
other,  under  burning  suns  and  icy  winds,  refusing  alms  in 
money,  but  accepting  the  coarsest  food  with  gratitude,  taking 
no  thought  for  the  morrow,  but  incessantly  occupied  in  snatching 
souls  from  Hell,  such   was  the  aspect  under  which  the  early 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  77 

Dominicans  and  Franciscans  presented  themselves  to  men  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  look  upon  a  monk  as  a  greedy,  sensual 
wordling.i 

33.  The  Franciscan  order,  created  by  Francis  of  Assisi 
(1182-1226)  in  spite  of  some  resistance  from  the  Papacy,  owed 
its  early  prestige  to  the  virtues  of  its  founder.  This  gentle 
mystic,  who  refused  to  be  ordained  a  priest,^  forbade  his  disciples 
to  hold,  not  only  private,  but  even  collective  property.  He 
died  opportunely  and  was  hastily  canonised  two  years  later. 
The  Inquisition  was  not  long  in  falling  out  with  the  spiritual 
Franciscans  or  fraticelli,  as  they  were  called  in  Italy ;  these 
followed  the  example  of  their  master  with  a  fidelity  which  was 
a  standing  reproach  to  the  cupidity  of  Rome,  and  not  a  few 
were  burnt  by  the  Church  in  the  fifteenth  century  (1426- 
1449). 

34,  The  short  life  of  St.  Francis  left  a  deep  impression  on  the 
spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages.  One  may  say  that  to  him  Christianity 
owed  a  new  lease  of  life,  because  in  him  the  faithful  found  among 
themselves,  and  not  in  the  mists  of  history,  a  man  whom  they 
could  admire  and  even  worship.  "  Never,"  says  Voltaire,  "  have 
the  eccentricities  of  the  human  intellect  been  pushed  further 
than  in  the  Book  of  the  Conformities  of  Christ  and  St.  Francis, 
written  in  his  own  time  and  afterwards  supplemented.  In  this 
book  Christ  is  looked  upon  as  the  precursor  of  Francis.  Here  we 
find  the  tale  of  the  snow  woman  made  by  the  saint  with  his  own 
hands :  that  of  the  rabid  wolf,  which  he  tamed  miraculously, 
making  it  promise  to  eat  no  more  sheep ;  of  the  doctor  whose 
death  he  brought  about  by  prayer,  that  he  might  have  the 
pleasure  of  resuscitating  him  by  further  prayers.  A  px'odigious 
number  of  miracles  were  credited  to  St.  Francis.  And,  in  truth, 
it  was  a  great  miracle  to  establish  his  order  and  so  to  multiply 
it  that  he  found  himself  surrounded  by  five  thousand  of  his 
monks  at  a  General  Chapter  held  near  Assisi  during  his  own 

'  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition,  vol.  i. 

*  "How  astonished  you  will  be  to  hear  that  Francis,  Francis,  that  admirable 
man,  who  led  a  life  more  angelic  than  human,  refused  the  holy  priesthood  ! 
.  .  .  He  trembled  and  shuddered  at  the  very  name  of  a  priest,  and,  in  spite 
of  the  most  legitimate  vocation,  dared  not  consider,  otherwise  than  at  a 
distance,  so  redoubtable  a  dignity  !"  (Bossuet,  Pawgyric  of  St.  Francis;  ed. 
Gaume,  vol.  iv.,  p.  438).     This  may  not  have  been  due  solely  to  modesty. 


78      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

lifetime."  Our  age  understands  St.  Francis  better  than  did 
Voltaire.  We  see  in  him  not  so  much  the  worker  of  miracles  as 
the  friend  of  the  lowly,  the  mystic  spouse  of  Poverty,  the  heart 
beating  in  sympathy  with  that  of  universal  nature ;  perhaps  we 
are  even  apt  to  modernise  him  too  much,  and  bring  him  nearer 
to  us  than  we  oueht. 

35.  The  idea  occurred  to  St.  Francis  of  affiliating  the  laity 
to  his  order.  This  led  to  the  powerful  institution  of  the  "  third 
order"  which  was  imitated  by  the  Jesuits  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  St.  Clara  of  Assisi,  the  friend  of  St.  Francis,  founded 
the  order  for  women  known  as  the  Poor  Clares  (1224),  whose 
rule  was  fixed  by  the  saint  herself  Thus  the  Franciscan  army 
drew  its  recruits  from  Christian  society  as  a  whole,  male  and 
female,  religious  and  secular. 

36.  The  great  revolution  brought  about  by  Franciscanism 
in  the  spirit,  literature  and  art  of  Christianity  cannot  be  ex- 
plained without  a  foreign  influence.  Christianity  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages  was  "  high  and  dry  " ;  to  St.  Francis  she  owed  new 
and  priceless  elements  of  emotion,  sympathy  and  kindness, 
together  with  a  feeling  for  the  beauties  of  nature  somewhat 
akin  to  pantheism.  Now,  while  Francis  was  growing  up  in 
Assisi,  the  Oriental  heretics  called  Cathaii  (the  "pure"),  who 
originated  in  Central  Asia  and  professed  tenets  akin  to  Buddhism, 
were  very  powerful  in  Northern  and  Central  Italy.  They  reigned 
almost  supreme  in  Assisi  about  1203,  and  Pope  Innocent  III. 
had  to  proceed  against  them.  Francis'  parents,  whom  he  after- 
wards forsook  and  forgot,  seem  to  have  belonged  to  the  sect.  A 
Christian  novel,  Barlaam  and  Joasaph,  M'hich  is  a  free  paraphrase 
of  the  Buddha's  life,  circulated  among  them  and  found  innumer- 
able readers  in  Europe  from  the  eleventh  century  onwards ; 
traces  of  it  can  be  detected  in  the  legend  of  the  saint  himself. 
But  he  was  no  heretic ;  always  faithful  to  the  Church  and 
hierarchy,  he  was  content  with  teaching  and  introducing  into 
the  very  heart  of  his  age  the  more  innocent  and  humane  elements 
of  Catharic  doctrine.  Not  without  reason,  and  with  more 
reason  than  he  could  himself  believe,  a  learned  Japanese  of  our 
day,  Anesaki,  dedicated  a  study  of  Buddhistic  art  "  to  the  sweet 
memory  of  St.  Francis."     Indirectly  and  unknowingly,  he  was 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  79 

the  first  to  rejuvenate  and  sweeten  Christianity  with  an  aroma 
of  distant  Buddhism. 

37.  The  Dominicans,  more  practical  than  the  Franciscans, 
though  equally  vowed  to  poverty,  were  founded  in  1216  by  the 
Spaniard,  Domingo  di  Guzman  (1170-1221).  They  were  called 
punningly  the  Dogs  of  God,  Domini  canes.  They  formed  a  kind 
of  militia  of  preachers  and  inquisitors,  with  affiliated  laymen, 
who  devoted  an  unbending  fanaticism  and  an  unlimited  obedience 
to  the  service  of  the  Papacy.  They  were  also  known  as  the 
Preaching  Friars,  and  in  France  as  the  Jacobins.  Quarrels  soon 
arose  between  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  and  introduced  a 
new  element  of  disorder  into  times  already  troublous  enough. 

38.  Another  blossom  sprang  from  the  mystic  spirit  of 
Tuscany  in  the  fourteenth  century,  in  Catherine  of  Siena,  a 
member  of  the  lay  order  of  St.  Dominic  (1347-1380).  She 
flogged  herself  three  times  a  day,  once  for  her  own  sins,  once  for 
those  of  others  still  alive,  and  once  for  those  of  the  dead. 
Betrothed  in  ecstasy  to  Jesus,  she  believed  he  had  given  her  the 
nuptial  ring ;  she  also  believed  she  had  been  nourished  on  milk 
from  the  bosom  of  Mary.  She  played  a  considerable  part  in 
politics,  and,  in  her  charity  for  the  suffering  and  desire  to  bring 
about  the  reign  of  peace  among  men,  she  showed  more  common 
sense  than  is  usually  expected  from  mystics.  Sent  to  Pope 
Gregory  XL,  a  native  of  the  Limousin,  to  persuade  him  to  cjuit 
Avignon  and  return  to  Rome  (which  he  then  intended  to  do), 
she  achieved  her  mission  with  the  aid  of  a  Swedish  visionary, 
St.  Bridget,  to  whom  an  angel  dictated  several  letters  for 
delivery  to  the  Pope  (1376).  Raimondo  da  Capua,  Catherine's 
confessor,  witnessed  most  of  her  miracles.  "  I  saw  her,"  he 
declares,  "  transformed  into  a  man,  with  a  little  beard  on  her 
chin.  The  face  into  which  hers  was  suddenly  changed  was  that 
of  Jesus  Christ  himself."  A  credible  witness,  indeed !  But  under 
all  the  puerility  of  this  legend,  as  under  that  of  St.  Francis 
receiving  the  stigmata  (that  is,  the  nail-marks  of  the  crucifixion 
on  his  hands  and  feet),  we  may  recognise  the  general  idea  of  the 
supernatural  identification  of  the  faithful  with  their  God,  which 
is  to  be  traced  in  the  most  ancient  forms  of  human  religion. 
Catherine  was  one  of  the  most  popular  saints  of  the  Italian 


80      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Renaissance.  She  was  canonised  in  1461.  Her  miracles  and 
her  ecstasies  are  celebrated  in  a  hundred  masterpieces  of  art. 

39.  The  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  saw  the  birth  of 
various  orders  which  were  at  once  religious  and  military.  Con- 
secrated in  the  first  place  to  the  service  of  the  wounded  in  war, 
they  vowed  themselves,  after  1118,  to  actual  warfare  against  the 
infidel.  Such  were  the  Hospitallers,  or  Knights  of  St.  John  of 
Jerusalem,  the  Templars,  the  Teutonic  Knights,  the  Knights  of 
the  Sword,  of  Santiago  of  Calatrava  and  of  Alcantara  in  Spain. 
Their  common  object  was  to  fight  with  and  incidentally  to  con- 
vert infidels  and  heretics.  They  were,  so  to  speak,  in  a  condition 
of  perpetual  crusade,  and  their  activity  well  represents  that 
spirit  of  proselytism  by  violence  which,  after  the  year  1000, 
superseded  proselytism  by  persuasion.  Moreover,  Templars  and 
Hospitallers  were  always  fighting  with  each  other :  in  a  certain 
combat  between  these  military  monks  no  Templar  was  left 
alive. 

The  Templars  were  bankers  as  well  as  warriors  and  became 
rich,  although  never  so  rich  as  the  Hospitallers.  Princes  and 
Popes  were  tempted  by  their  pi'operty.  They  were  accused  of 
secret  rites  of  idolatry,  and  of  various  infamous  practices.  In 
1307,  Philip  the  Fair,  assisted  after  a  short  resistance  by  Pope 
Clement  V.,  arrested  all  the  Templars  in  France.  He  caused 
them  to  be  examined  by  his  agents,  who  used  torture  to  extort 
confessions,  and  afterwards  handed  them  over  to  the  Inquisition, 
his  docile  instrument.  The  knights  confessed  a  thousand  crimes. 
Outside  France,  however,  where  torture  was  not  applied,  they 
protested  their  innocence,  while  even  in  France  itself  the 
following  singular  fact  was  observed :  Two  Templars  belonging 
to  different  commanderies,  when  tortured  and  questioned  by  the 
same  judge,  confessed  the  same  crimes,  while  two  Templars  of 
the  same  commandery,  tortured  by  different  judges,  confessed 
different  crimes.  The  fraud  is  obvious.  The  confessions  were 
extorted  and  dictated.  There  is  not  a  shadow  of  proof  that  the 
Templars  borrowed  idolatrous  rites  and  immoral  practices  from 
the  Orientals  with  whom  they  had  come  in  contact.  Besides,  at 
the  last  moment,  those  who  could  do  so  retracted  their  avowals, 
whereupon  they  were  burnt  alive  for  having  relapsed  (1310). 


FROM  JUSTINIAN  TO  CHARLES   V  81 

The  Grand  Master,  Jacques  de  Molay,  who  had  confessed  under 

the  threat  of  torture,  retracted  his  confession  four  years  later 

and  perished  at  the  stake  (1314).     The  persecution  spread  to 

the   other  nations  of  Europe.     Even  in  England,  where  the 

employment  of  torture  has  always  been  repugnant  to  the  free 

instincts  of  the  people,  it  was  brought  into  play  at  the  express 

demand  of  the  Pope.     When  the  order  was  suppressed  (1312), 

the  princes  confiscated  its  property,  giving  a  part  to  other  orders 

and  not  a  little  to  the  Papacy.     This   was  one  of  the  most 

detestable  affairs  of  a  period  in  history  which  ignorance  and 

fanaticism  are  still  apt  to  admire.    But  if  the  Pope's  responsibility 

was  great,  that  of  Philip  the  Fair  was  still  heavier :  for  the 

pontiff,  weak  and  domesticated,  was  the  accomplice,  not  the 

instigator  of  the  king.     Philip  acted  with  no  less  cruelty  and 

cynicism  when  he  turned  his  attention  to  getting  rid  of  Jews 

and  lepers. 

.  •  •  •  • 

40.  The  dogma  of  the  Incarnation  was  a  stumbling-block 
for  human  reason.  As  early  as  the  fourth  century  some 
endeavoured  to  meet  the  difficulty  by  the  theory  of  adoption. 
God  had  adopted  Jesus  Christ  at  the  time  of  His  baptism  in 
the  Jordan.  This  theory,  not  far  removed  from  Arianism,  was 
upheld  chiefly  in  Spain,  in  the  time  of  Charlemagne,  condenmed 
by  the  Council  of  Ratisbon  (792),  and  refuted  by  Alcuin  (799). 
Traces  of  it  are  to  be  found,  however,  in  the  teaching  of  Abelard. 

41.  Vain  attempts  have  been  made  to  impute  the  worship  of 
the  Virgin  Mary  to  the  Christians  of  the  fourth  century.  It  was 
not  until  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  that  Mariolatry  declared 
itself  in  the  East.  Men  were  taught  that  Mary  was  carried  up 
to  Heaven  by  angels,  and  the  Emperor  Maurice  instituted  the 
Feast  of  the  Assumption  in  her  honour  (582).  This  feast  was 
adopted  in  the  West  about  the  year  750.  From  the  twelfth 
century  Mai-y  has  been  adored,  especially  in  France,  as  the 
Mother  of  God,  almost  as  a  goddess.  It  was  to  this  epoch  that 
a  singular  miracle  was  ascribed  in  documents  concocted  some 
three  centuries  later.  It  was  said  that  the  house  {Casd)  of  the 
Virgin  in  Nazareth  had  been  transported  by  angels,  first  into 
Dalmatia  (1291)  and  thence  to  Loretto,  where  it  became  the 


82      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

object  of  a  lucrative  pilgrimage,  attracting,  in  our  days,  more  than 
a  hundred  thousand  faithful  annually.  In  order  that  nothing 
might  be  wanting  to  these  pagan  rites,  many  pilgrims  got  a 
figure  of  the  Madonna  of  Loretto  tattooed  in  blue  on  their  arms. 
Hundreds  of  other  still  existing  sanctuaries  owe  their  foundation 
and  prosperity  to  Mariolatry.  Two  facts  contributed  very 
powerfully  to  the  formation  of  this  cult :  the  honour  in  which 
celibacy  was  held,  and  the  necessity  for  a  feminine  ideal  in  the 
Christian  pantheon.  Monasticism  found  satisfaction  here  for 
starved  affections,  as  did  chivalry  for  its  romantic  gallantry. 
Mary  became  the  mediator  between  suffering  humanity  and  the 
glorified  Christ,  who  yielded  up  His  role  of  intercessor  to  her 
more  and  more,  being  in  His  turn  moved  to  pardon  by  her 
prayers. 

42.  But  did  Mary,  at  her  birth,  receive  the  infection  of 
original  sin  ?  If  so,  why  did  she  not  transmit  it  to  Jesus  ?  This 
difficulty  was  met,  in  the  twelfth  century,  by  the  doctrine  of  the 
Immaculate  Conception,  which  means,  not  what  the  less  in- 
structed public  supposes,  but  that  at  the  moment  when  the 
body  of  Mary  received  its  soul,  a  particular  act  of  grace 
preserved  it  from  the  contagion  of  sin.  This  doctrine  was 
upheld  by  Duns  Scotus  against  St.  Thomas,  by  the  Franciscans 
against  the  Dominicans,  by  the  Jesuits  against  the  Jansenists. 
In  1854  it  became  an  article  of  faith  in  the  Roman  Church. 
The  Greek  Church,  Mariolatrous  as  it  is,  does  not  admit  it.  As 
for  the  Reformed  Churches,  they  all,  with  the  exception  of  the 
English  Ritualists,  hold  the  adoration  of  Mary  in  horror. 

43.  In  order  to  combat  the  new  opinion,  the  Dominicans  of 
Berne,  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  chose  a  young 
man  of  weak  intellect,  a  tailor  s  apprentice,  and  caused  Mary 
herself  to  appear  before  his  eyes  to  protest  against  the  doctrine 
of  the  Immaculate  Conception.  The  fraud  was  discovered,  and 
four  Dominicans  were  burnt  at  the  stake  (1509).  Long  before 
this,  however,  the  Dominicans  had  made  use  of  St.  Catherine  of 
Siena,  to  whom  the  Virgin  revealed  that  she  had  been  born  in 
sin ;  unfortunately,  the  Franciscans  had  a  contemporary  saint 
of  their  own,  St.  Bridget,  to  whom  Mary  declared,  with  equal 
confidence,  that  she  had  been  born  free  from  sin  (1375). 


FROM  JUSTINIAN  TO   CHARLES   V  83 

44.  It  became  necessary  to  put  limits  to  the  cult  of  saints, 
and  the  Church  reserved  to  herself  the  right  of  choosing  them 
(tenth  century).  Ever  since  the  twelfth  century,  the  Papacy 
alone  has  had  the  power  to  beatify  or  canonise  individuals,  after 
a  regular  process  of  trial  in  which  the  deviFs  advocate  has  to  be 
heard.  This  advocate  did  not  prevent  the  canonisation  of  blood- 
thirsty Inquisitors,  like  the  Italian  Peter  Martyr  of  Verona 
(t  1365),  and  the  Spaniard,  Pedro  Arbues  (t  1485),  the  latter 
enrolled  among  the  saints  by  Pius  IX.,  in  defiance  of  all  modern 
and  humane  ideas.  The  Roman  Church,  moreover,  honours  a 
number  of  saints — such  as  Rene,  Philomena,  Reine,  Corona — 
whose  only  fault  is  that  they  never  existed. 

45.  In  order  to  feed  the  piety  of  the  populace,  which  delighted 
in  tales  of  miracles,  a  monk  called  Jacobus  de  Voragine  published, 
in  1298,  iheGolden  Legend,  which  still  exercises  a  certain  influence 
on  literature  and  art.  It  is  a  regular  Christian  mythology,  taken 
from  the  most  doubtful  sources,  charming  to  the  sceptical  dilet- 
tante, exasperating  to  a  reverent  believer.  If  the  first  result  is 
the  more  usual  one  in  these  days,  it  is  easy  to  guess  the  reason. 

46.  In  Catholic  countries  a  man  is  still  said  to  fulfil  his 
religious  duties  when  he  "goes  to  Mass."  The  word  Mass 
comes,  perhaps,  from  the  concluding  formula  of  the  service  in 
the  course  of  which  the  bread  and  the  wine  are  consecrated  and 
absorbed  by  the  officiating  priest :  ite  missa  est.  Doubts,  how- 
ever, attach  to  this  derivation.  It  is  possible  that  missa  was  a 
popular  Latin  word  meaning  function,  or  ceremony.  As  early 
as  the  end  of  the  first  century  traces  of  a  religious  ceremony 
connected  with  the  offering  of  bread  and  wine  are  to  be  found 
in  Rome  :  this  was  the  origin  of  the  modern  Mass. 

47.  If  we  examine  the  texts  relating  to  the  Eucharist  in 
their  chronological  order,  it  appears  that  at  first  this  repast 
was  merely  the  commemoration  of  the  Last  Supper  of  Christ 
by  the  consumption  of  bread  and  wine  in  common  by  the 
faithful.  As  time  passed  the  supper  in  common  disappeared, 
the  consumption  of  bread  and  wine  took  on  a  magic  character, 
until  finally  it  was  believed  that  the  actual  body  and  blood  of 
Jesus  were  present  in  the  host  and  the  chalice.  That  is  the 
case  as  put  by  the  Protestants.     But  to  those  who  know  how 


84      A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

great  a  part  theophagy  played  in  the  more  or  less  secret  rites  of 
many  non-Christian  religions  it  is  difficult  to  deny  that  as 
early  as  the  time  of  St.  Paul,  and  in  his  thoughts,  the  Holy 
Supper  tended  to  put  on  a  similar  character,  hidden,  at  first, 
from  the  non-believer  by  a  discreet  and  even  compulsory  silence 
(as  were  the  arcana  of  the  mystic  rites  of  paganism).  The 
dogma  of  the  Heal  Presence  was  distinctly  formulated  by  the 
monk  Paschasius  Radbertus  of  Corbie  (844),  but  it  had  existed, 
as  a  belief,  long  before  his  time.  Berengarius  of  Tours,  by 
whom  this  materialistic  conception  was  attacked,  had  to  retract 
in  1059,  and  twenty  years  later  the  dogma  of  transubstantiation 
was  adopted  by  a  Council  at  Rome. 

48.  About  the  year  1150  a  discussion  arose  in  Paris  as  to 
whether  the  bread  was  changed  into  the  body  of  Christ  as  soon 
as  the  words  "  This  is  my  body  "  were  pronounced,  or  whether 
it  awaited  the  transformation  of  the  wine.  It  was  in  order  to 
assert  the  former  opinion  that,  about  1200,  the  priests  of  Paris 
were  instructed  to  elevate  the  host  in  full  view  of  the  congrega- 
tion, immediately  after  having  pronounced  the  formula.  By  the 
thirteenth  century  this  custom  had  become  general. 

49.  It  was  at  this  period  that  the  privilege  of  sharing  the 
wine  was  withdrawn  from  the  laity,  who  thenceforth  had  the 
right  only  to  the  host,  the  priest  drinking  the  wine  on  behalf  of 
all.  The  change  was  brought  about  by  accidents  which  had 
become  so  frequent  as  to  be  a  scandal,  especially  the  spilling  of 
the  sacred  wine.  Those  who  persisted  in  claiming  participation 
in  the  chalice  were  called  Calixt'mes ;  in  Bohemia,  where  they 
were  connected  with  the  heresy  of  John  Huss,  they  were  treated 
with  great  rigour. 

50.  The  Eucharist  gave  occasion  for  a  new  festival.  "  No 
ceremony  of  the  Church,  perhaps,  is  nobler,  more  magnificent, 
more  capable  of  filling  beholders  with  piety,  than  the  feast  of 
the  Holy  Sacrament.  Antiquity  itself  had  no  ceremony  more 
august.  And  yet  who  was  the  real  cause  of  its  establishment  ? 
A  nun  of  the  convent  of  Moncornillon  near  Liege,  who  fancied 
every  night  she  saw  a  hole  in  the  moon.  This  was  duly  followed 
by  a  revelation  from  which  she  learnt  that  the  moon  meant  the 
Church   and   the  hole  a  festival   which   was  yet  wanting.     A 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  85 

monk  called  John  collaborated  with  her  in  composing  the  office 
of  the  Holy  Sacrament.  The  festival  was  first  established  at 
Liege;  Urban  IV.  adopted  it  for  the  Church  at  large  (1264.)."! 
This  festival  was  long  a  source  of  trouble.  In  Paris,  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  Catholics  forced  the  Protestants  to 
decorate  their  houses  and  kneel  in  the  streets  as  the  Communion 
procession  went  by.  One  of  the  crimes  which  brought  the 
Chevalier  de  la  Barre  to  the  scaffold,  in  1766,  was  that  of  having 
kept  on  his  hat  one  rainy  day  as  he  passed  a  procession  of  the 
Sacrament. 

51.  The  Church's  tendency  after  the  year  1000  was  towards 
domination  both  in  spiritual  and  temporal  matters.    The  clergy 
had  to  think  and  act  for  every  one.     The  laity  was  forbidden 
to  read  the  Scriptures  (1^229).    "  It  was  an  insult  to  humanity  to 
say  :  we  wish  you  to  cherish  a  certain  belief,  but  we  do  not  wish 
you  to  read  the  book  on  which  that  belief  is  founded."  ^    Prayer 
became  little  more  than  a  mechanical  exercise,  aided,  after  the 
twelfth  century  (perhaps  from  Mahommedan  example),  by  the 
use  of  chaplet  and  rosary.     Hundreds,  thousands  of  Ave  Marias 
had  to  be  recited  as  penance  for  the  slightest  fault.     Excluded 
thus  from  religious  life,  which  was  the  only  life  for  the  simple 
thought  of  the  age,  the  crowd  attached  all  the  more  importance 
to  those  rites  in  which  they  were  allowed,  and  even  compelled, 
to  participate.     The  Church  adjudicated  on  these  points  also. 
Following  Peter  Lombard,  she  decided  in  the  twelfth  century 
that  there  were  seven  sacraments,  neither  more  nor  less :  Baptism, 
the   Eucharist,   Marriage,   Confirmation,  Ordination,   Penance, 
and  Extreme  Unction.     Needless  to  say,  no  foundation  for  such 
a  doctrine  could  be  discovered  in  the  Gospels. 

52.  "  Confess  your  faults  one  to  another,"  says  the  writer  of 
the  epistle  ascribed  to  St.  James.  The  primitive  Church  had 
practised  confession  in  public,  which  had  its  obvious  drawbacks. 
The  victorious  Church  saw  in  confession  a  powerful  means  of 
influencing  souls,  and  substituted  private  confession  to  a  priest 
for  confession  in  public.  Confession  implied  penance,  which 
was  usually  some  good  work,  such  as  a  gift  to  the  Church.  But 
the  Church,  the  custodian  of  the  infinite  merits  of  Christ  and  the 
1  Voltaire.  «  Ibid. 


86      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Saints,  could  draw  upon  this  inexhaustible  treasure  to  exempt 
the  penitent,  either  wholly  or  in  part,  from  the  consequences  his 
acts  would  otherwise  have  brought  upon  him  in  the  other  life. 
Thus  the  practice  of  confession  led  inevitably  to  that  traffic  in 
the  chastisements  of  Purgatory  and  in  ecclesiastical  indulgences 
which  was  one  of  the  determining  causes  of  the  Reformation. 

53.  In  1215,  under  Innocent  III.,  auricular  confession  at 
least  once  a  year  was  made  obligatory.  A  priest  alone  could 
hear  confession.  An  abbess,  even  of  the  most  important  convent 
of  women,  had  no  such  right — a  curious  indignity  put  by  the 
Church  on  the  sex  to  which  the  Mother  of  God  belonged. 

54.  "  A  custom  which  began  to  be  introduced  in  the  eleventh 
century  must  not  be  forgotten,  that  of  buying  off  the  dead  and 
delivering  their  souls  from  Purgatory  by  the  alms  and  prayers 
of  the  living.     A  solemn  festival  consecrated  to  this  form  of 
piety  was  established.    The  Cardinal  Pierre  Damien  relates  that 
a  pilgrim,  on  his  way  back  from  Jerusalem,  was  cast  upon  an 
island,  w^here  he  found  a  pious  hermit,  from  whom  he  learnt 
that  the  island  was  inhabited  by  devils,  that  the  country  in  his 
neighbourhood  was  covered  with  flames,  into  which  the  devils 
threw  the  souls  of  the  newly  dead,  that  these  same  devils  never 
ceased  to  cry  out  and  howl  against  Odilon,  Abbot  of  Cluny, 
whom  they  called  their  mortal  enemy.    '  The  prayers  of  Odilon,' 
they  declared,  '  and  his  monks,  were  always  robbing  them  of 
some  soul.*     This  being  reported  to  Odilon,  he  established  the 
Fete  des  Morts  (Festival  of  the  Dead)  at  his  Abbey  of  Cluny. 
The  Church  soon  followed  his  example.    If  matters  had  stopped 
there  it  would  have  been  but  a  form  of  devotion  the  more ;  but 
abuses  were  not  long  in  creeping  in.     The  mendicant  friars, 
especially,  required  payment  for  delivering  souls  from  Purgatory. 
They  talked  of  apparitions  of  the  dead,  of  piteous  souls  who 
came  to  beg  for  rescue,  and  of  the  sudden  deaths  and  eternal 
tortures    of  those   who   refused   their  help.     Pure  brigandage 
succeeded  to  pious  credulity,  and  was  one  of  the  causes  which 
lost  half  Europe  to  the  Roman  Church."  ^ 

55.  The  traffic  in  indulgences  became  more  shameless  than 
ever  after  the  institution  of  the  jubilees  by  Boniface  VIII. 

^  Voltaire. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  87 

(1300).  It  was  not  long  before  jubilees  at  intervals  of  twenty- 
five  years  were  established,  in  order  that  every  one  might  have 
a  chance  of  participating  in  the  indulgence  promised  by  the 
Church  to  all  who  made  the  pilgrimage  to  Rome.  At  the  same 
time  monks  travelled  about  selling  indulgences,  both  plenary 
and  partial.  One  Franciscan  declared  that  the  Pope,  if  he 
chose,  could  empty  Purgatory  at  a  single  stroke.  Why,  then, 
did  he  hesitate  to  do  so  ?  That  Franciscan  was  troublesome, 
but  his  statement  was  logical ;  the  Sorbonne  condemned  him  on 
both  counts. 

56.  The  marriage  of  priests  had  already  been  prohibited  in 
the  West  during  the  fourth  century ;  it  seemed  intolerable  to 
Gregory  VII.,  who  sought  to  have  it  forbidden  by  the  secular 
power.  In  spite  of  the  Church's  efforts,  the  principle  of 
ecclesiastical  celibacy  did  not  triumph,  however,  until  the 
thirteenth  century  ;  and  even  then  certain  compromises  with  the 
full  rigour  of  the  law  were  admitted — in  South  America,  for 
instance.  Celibacy  did  not  make  the  priests  any  better,  but  it 
exposed  them  to  taunts  which  were  often  justified,  and  thus 
diminished  their  influence  with  the  people;  it  provided  the 
Reformers  with  one  of  their  arguments.  However,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  efficiency,  sacerdotal  celibacy  has  added 
immensely  to  the  power  of  the  Roman  Church.  An  unmarried 
priest  or  monk  is  free  from  worldly  cares  ;  his  superiors  can  send 
him  to  any  place,  or  eventually  dismiss  him,  without  fearing  to 
endanger  or  starve  a  family.  The  individual  may  suffer  morally 
or  otherwise ;  but  it  means  a  permanent  benefit  to  the  govern- 
ment of  souls. 

.  •  •  •  • 

57.  When  we  examine  the  attitude  of  the  Church  toward 
heresies  we  are  at  first  struck  with  admiration.  She  has  always 
known  how  to  preserve  the  just  mean  between  mysticism  and 
rationalism.  Obliged  by  her  very  origin  to  impose  upon  the 
world  a  certain  number  of  beliefs  the  truth  of  which  she  cannot 
demonstrate,  she  allows  nothing  to  be  either  subtracted  from  or 
added  to  them.  Dogma  is  a  province  administered  by  herself, 
in  which  intruders  are  treated  as  enemies.  This  good  sens*  of 
the  Church  was  in  full  accordance  with  her  temporal  interests. 


88      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Mystics  and  infidels  alike  claim  to  do  without  her,  without  her 
images,  her  relics,  her  magic.  They  are  "  bad  taxpayers."  But 
the  Church  is  a  vast  and  very  expensive  organisation.  She 
requires  a  great  deal  of  money.  Now,  I  defy  any  one  to  name 
a  single  opinion  persecuted  by  the  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  adoption  of  which  would  not  have  brought  about  a 
diminution  in  her  revenues.  Voltaire  is  absolutely  in  the  wrong 
when  he  writes :  "  In  all  the  disputes  which  have  excited 
Christians  against  each  other,  Rome  has  invariably  decided  in 
favour  of  that  opinion  which  tended  most  towards  the  sup- 
pression of  the  human  intellect  and  the  annihilation  of  the 
reasoning  powers."  The  Church  did  not  take  arms  against 
reason  whenever  her  tenets  allowed  her  to  be  reasonable ; 
moreover,  she  was  not  tyrannical  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  being 
so  ;  she  had  to  think  of  her  finances. 

58.  When  her  authority  and  material  interests  were  not 
involved  the  Church  was  tolerant  enough.  People  might  amuse 
themselves,  even  at  the  expense  of  the  decencies  of  worship,  so 
long  as  they  made  no  pretence  of  doing  without  it.  "  The  most 
august  features  of  religion  were  disfigured  in  the  West  by  the 
most  ridiculous  customs.  The  Feast  of  Fools,  and  that  of  the 
Ass,  were  established  festivals  in  the  majority  of  churches.  On 
certain  solemn  days  a  Bishop  of  Fools  was  elected ;  an  ass  was 
introduced  into  the  nave  dressed  up  in  cope  and  biretta.  The 
ass  was  honoured  in  memory  of  the  animal  which  carried  Jesus 
Christ.  At  the  end  of  the  Mass  the  priest  set  himself  to  bray 
three  times  with  all  his  might,  and  the  people  echoed  him. 
Dancing  in  the  churches  and  indecent  fooleries  formed  part  of 
the  ceremonies  at  these  commemorations,  a  practice  which  lasted 
for  some  seven  centuries  in  many  a  diocese.  Rome  could  not 
put  an  end  to  these  barbarous  usages,  any  more  than  to  the  duel 
and  the  trial  by  ordeal.  In  the  rites  of  the  Roman  Church,  how- 
ever, there  was  always  more  decency  and  gravity  than  elsewhere  ; 
we  feel  that,  on  the  whole,  when  she  was  free  and  well  governed, 
she  existed  to  set  a  good  example  to  other  communions."  ^ 

59.  The  Iconoclasts,  or  image-breakers,  were  those  Eastern 
Christians  who  attempted,  in  the  eighth  century,  to  strip  the 

1  Voltaire. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN  TO   CHARLES   V  89 

churches  of  statues,  which  had  come  to  be  venerated  hke  idols. 
Many  causes  have  been  named  for  this  movement — memories  of 
the  Mosaic  legislation,  so  hostile  to  idolatry ;  fear  of  Musulman 
satire.  The  true  reason  seems  to  have  been  hostility  to  the 
monks,  whom  the  manufacture  of  images  enriched.  Leo  the 
Isaurian  was  a  violent  Iconoclast ;  his  son,  Constantine  Copro- 
nymus,  obtained  the  condennmtion  of  images  by  the  Council  of 
754.  But  the  Empress  Irene,  wife  of  Leo  IV.,  Constantine's 
successor,  was  won  over  by  the  monks  when  she  became  regent, 
and  caused  the  condemnation  to  be  reversed  by  a  later  Council 
(786).  To  worship  images  was  not  permitted,  but  to  kiss  them, 
to  prostrate  oneself  before  theni,  to  burn  candles  and  incense 
at  their  feet,  was  legitimate.  Charlemagne,  or  rather  Alcuin, 
director  of  the  Palace  School,  who  had  iconoclastic  tendencies, 
protested  against  the  adoration  at  least,  if  not  against  the 
existence,  of  the  images  themselves,  in  the  West.  His  protest 
was  upheld  by  two  Frankish  Councils ;  but  the  pagan  current  in 
the  Church  was  too  strong,  and  too  many  material  interests  were 
involved.  Down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation  the  advocates 
of  images  triumphed  all  over  Europe.  Happily  for  art,  they 
have  never  been  silenced,  though  the  Tridentine  Council  made 
some  concessions  to  them. 

60.  "A  heretic,"  says  Bossuet,  "is  a  man  with  an  opinion." 
{hairesis^  in  Greek,  "  choice."")  In  the  darker  centuries  of  the 
Middle  Ages  few  men  had  intellect  enough  to  think  for  them- 
selves. Gottschalk,  a  monk  of  Fulda,  exaggerated  Augustinism 
and  the  doctrine  of  predestination.  He  was  condemned  by  two 
synods  and  thrown  into  prison  (849).  The  other  heresies  of  the 
time  need  not  be  recorded  here.  It  is  only  after  the  year  1000 
that  they  become  interesting. 

6L  The  great  heresies  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies may  be  divided  into  two  classes.  The  first  were  the  revolts 
of  honest  people,  who  dreamt  of  the  purity  of  apostolic  times 
and  wished  profoundly  to  reform  the  hierarchy,  or  even  to 
suppress  it.  These  were  the  anti- sacerdotal  heretics,  whom  the 
Church  persecuted  with  most  severity  because  they  threatened 
both  her  organisation  and  her  property.  The  other  class  were 
the  dogmatic  heretics,  affiliated  to  Oriental  Manichaeism,  which 


90      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

ended    in    the  ascetic   doctrine.      The    Church,   a   government 
wishing  to  hve  and  to  let  live,  could  not  tolerate  them  either. 

62.  Arnold  of  Brescia,  a  pupil  of  Abelard,  took  the  field  in 
Italy,  Switzerland,  and  France  against  the  wealth  and  corrup- 
tion of  the  clergy.  By  his  eloquence  he  gained  over  the  citizens 
of  Rome,  who  established  the  simulacrum  of  a  republic.  The 
Pope  summoned  the  Emperor  Frederick  I.  to  his  assistance. 
Frederick  besieged  Rome,  and  took  it  through  the  treachery 
of  the  nobles.  Arnold  was  strangled  and  his  body  burnt 
(1155). 

63.  A  sect  of  Eastern  Manichees,  or  Manichaeans,  the  Pauli- 
cians  (referring  not  to  Paul  the  Apostle,  but  to  Paul  of  Samo- 
sata),  had  spread  over  Bulgaria,  and  thence  up  the  valley  of  the 
Danube  towards  Italy  and  France.  Its  members  called  them- 
selves Cathari ;  that  is,  The  p7i7-e.  The  name  was  corrupted  into 
Patarins,  and  in  Germany  into  Keizer,  which  became  the  German 
term  for  heretics  in  general.  Indian  Buddhism  and  Persian 
Mazdeism  both  contributed  elements  to  their  creed.  They 
taught  that  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  was  the  Devil,  that 
Jesus  was  the  good  God,  and  that  the  Devil  in  the  form  of 
sensuality  was  to  be  fought  against.  An  inner  ring,  the 
Perfect^  vowed  themselves  to  celibacy,  and  all  renounced  the 
eating  of  flesh,  except  that  of  fishes.  They  had  no  baptism  ; 
only  a  laying  on  of  hands,  which  they  called  Consolation,  which 
seems  indeed  to  have  been  a  custom  of  the  primitive  Christian 
Church.  It  was  equivalent  to  initiation.  The  members  con- 
fessed to  each  other.  The  Cathar'i  were  strictly  moral,  although 
they  were  calumniated  by  hostile  rumours.  In  the  comparatively 
advanced  civilisation  of  the  south  of  France  they  gathered 
numerous  recruits,  and  had  bishops  both  at  Toulouse  and  at 
Albi.  It  was  from  the  latter  city  that  they  took  their  name 
of  Albigenses. 

64.  The  Church  waged  a  relentless  war  against  these  in- 
offensive sectaries.  As  St.  Bernard  failed  to  convince  them  of 
their  errors,  Innocent  III.,  in  1208,  preached  a  crusade  against 
them.  Raymond  VI.,  Count  of  Toulouse,  was  obliged  to  take 
the  field  against  his  own  subjects.  He  saw  his  lands  invaded 
by  300,000  adventurers,  who  for  some  twenty  years  murdered. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  91 

burnt,  and  pillaged  under  the  orders  of  the  Pope's  legate  (1209- 
1229).^  Flourishing  cities,  like  Beziers  and  Carcassonne,  were 
treated  as  the  Crusaders  treated  Byzantium.  At  the  siege  of 
Lavaur,  the  Seigneur  and  eighty  knights  were  taken  prisoners 
and  condemned  to  be  hanged.  But  the  gallows  being  broken, 
they  were  handed  over  to  the  Crusaders,  who  massacred  them 
all.  Three  hundred  of  the  inhabitants,  who  refused  to  recant 
their  opinions,  were  burnt  round  a  well  down  which  the  sister 
of  the  Sergneiir  had  been  previously  thrown  (1211).  And 
besides  the  thousands  of  wretched  people  who  died  by  the 
sword  and  at  the  stake,  how  many  rotted  to  death  in  obscure 
dungeons !  The  Inquisition,  established  in  1232  in  order  to 
stamp  out  the  remains  of  this  particular  heresy,  set  the  faggots 
blazing  all  over  the  country  and  completed  its  ruin.  Provencal 
civilisation  received  such  a  blow  that  it  took  three  centuries 
to  recover.  We  are  still  waiting,  both  at  Beziers  and  at 
Carcassonne,  for  expiatory  memorials  to  the  Albigensian 
martyrs. 

65.  As  early  as  the  ninth  century,  when  Claude,  Bishop  of 
Turin,  combated  the  worship  of  images  and  other  pagan  prac- 
tices, Piedmont  formed  a  school  of  honest  clerics  who  turned 
their  attention  to  the  reform  of  the  Church.  Towards  1100  we 
find  Pierre  de  Brueys,  burnt  in  1124,  insisting  that  the  Bible 
afforded  the  only  rule  of  faith  and  worship.  After  him  Henry,  a 
Lombard,  preached  at  Lausanne,  in  Burgundy,  and  at  Le  Mans  ; 
he  was  condemned  in  1148.  Finally  a  rich  citizen  of  Lyons, 
Pierre  Waldo,  having  read  the  Bible  and  admired  it,  caused  it 
to  be  translated  into  the  vernacular,  divided  his  property  among 
the  people,  and  founded  a  church  for  the  poor,  the  Pauvres  de 
Lyon,  or  Humilies.  Of  course  these  "Poor  Men""  were  perse- 
cuted. The  remains  of  their  community  withdrew  into  the 
valleys  of  the  Alps,  and  there  founded  the  Church  of  the 
Waldenses,  the  principles  of  which  are  very  similar  to  those 
of  the  Reformation.  Like  the  Reformers,  the  Waldenses 
endeavoured  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  those  sacred  writings 
which  Pope  Innocent  III.  had  forbidden  the  faithful  to  read. 

66.  The  persecution  of  the  Waldenses  was  revived  under 

*  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition,  vol.  i. 


92      A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Clement  XII.,  an  Avignon  Pope.  Hundreds  were  burnt  by  the 
Inquisition  at  Grenoble  and  in  Dauphind.  Towards  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century  a  papal  legate  undertook  their  extermina- 
tion, and  conducted  a  ferocious  crusade  against  them.  Whole 
bands  were  smoked  to  death  by  him  in  caves  in  which  they  had 
taken  refuge.  Those  of  the  Piedmontese  valleys  only  escaped 
similar  treatment  through  the  protection  of  one  of  the  Dukes  of 
Savoy.  In  1663,  and  again  in  1686,  these  hateful  persecutions 
were  revived  at  the  instigation  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  entire  valleys 
were  depopulated.  The  executioners  were  Irish  mercenaries, 
retained  for  the  purpose  by  the  then  Duke  of  Savoy.  The 
survivors  found  asylum  in  Switzerland  and  Germany.  Acting 
from  that  base,  a  few  hundred  brave  men,  led  by  their  pastor, 
Henri  Arnaud,  undertook  to  reconquer  their  country.  They 
were  on  the  point  of  failure,  when  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  who  was 
by  that  time  at  war  with  France,  made  peace  with  them  and 
put  the  defence  of  their  valleys  into  their  own  hands.  An  edict 
of  toleration,  obtained  in  1694,  allowed  them  to  live  in  peace 
thenceforward. 

67.  Other  less  extensive  heresies  were  suppressed  with  equal 
vigour  by  the  Church.  Nicholas  of  Basle,  founder  of  the  Friends 
of  God  {Gottesfreimde),  was  burnt  by  the  Inquisition  in  1383. 
The  Flagellants,  who  were  at  first  encouraged  in  their  silly  forms 
of  penance,  had  to  undergo  the  lot  of  all  those  mystics  who  fell 
short  of  entire  submission  to  the  Church.  We  have  seen  that 
the  Inquisition  raged  against  the  spiritual  Franciscans ;  it  also 
persecuted  the  Begiiins  and  Beguines  of  Flanders,  whose  semi- 
secular  associations  had  a  tendency  to  disregard  the  hierarchy. 

68.  With  the  exception  of  the  Waldenses,  the  sects 
persecuted  by  the  Church  lacked  moderation  and  good  sense. 
Even  the  Albigenses,  with  their  extravagant  asceticism,  would 
eventually  have  become  a  danger  to  civil  society.  It  does  not 
appear,  however,  that  in  its  struggle  against  the  sectaries  the 
Church  was  moved  by  any  such  wise  consideration  as  this. 
Those  historians  who  uphold  the  opposite  view  are  not  arguing 
in  good  faith.  The  Church  fought  for  her  own  authority,  for 
her  privileges  and  wealth  ;  and  she  did  so  with  an  unexampled 
ferocity,  which  was  all  the  more  culpable  in  that  she  pretended 


FROM  JUSTINIAN  TO   CHARLES   V  93 

to  be  inspired  by  the  Gospel,  by  a  religion   of  kindness  and 

humility. 

•  .  .  •  • 

69.  During  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century  Paris  was 
the  centre  of  theological  studies.     Pope  Innocent  III.  and  John 
of  Salisbury,  the  one  Italian,  the  other  English,  came  there  for 
instruction.      Speculative   thinking   had   been  revived   in    the 
schools,  about  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  by  the  influence 
of  Aristotle,  whose  works  had  been  translated  first  into  Arabic, 
and    afterwards   into    Latin.      Thence   arose   what    was   called 
the  Scholastic  Philosophy,  a  sort  of  Aristotelian  Christianity. 
Among  its  teachers,  who  sought  to  found  Christianity  upon  logic 
and  metaphysics,  were  some  men  of  great  ability,  such  as  Anselm, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (1033-1109).     Not  only  did  he  con- 
ceive what  is  called  the  ontological  proof  of  God's  existence  ("  I 
conceive  God  as  perfect ;  being  perfect  He  must  exist,  because 
reality  is  an  attribute  of  perfection  " — the  sophistry  of  this  was 
only  fully  demonstrated  by  Kant) ;  he  also  formulated,  with  the 
full  approbation  of  the  Church,  the  ingenious  theory  of  Atone- 
ment.    Man  has  sinned  against  God,  he  has  accumulated  an 
infinity  of  misdeeds ;    to  counterbalance  such  a  mass   of   in- 
debtedness all  good  works  are  insufficient ;  hence  the  necessity 
for  the  sacrifice  of  God  made  man,  for  the  Incarnation  and 
the  Redemption.    It  was  by  the  example  of  Ansehn  that  people 
were  taught  to  find  arguments  for  the  faith  in  reason,  and  not 
only  in  the  opinions  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church.     So  far  we 
may  say  he  opened  the  door  to  rationalism.     Progress  in  this 
direction  was  helped  by  the  long  quarrel  of  the  Nominalists, 
who  denied  the  real  existence  of  general  ideas ;  of  the  Realists, 
who  (like  Anselm)  affirmed  it ;  and  of  the  Conceptualists  (like 
Abelard),  who  declared  that  conceptions  were  the  only  realities. 
This  discussion,  which  has  seemed  so  idle  since  the  days  of  Kant, 
helped  to  withdraw  educated  men  from  the  tyranny  of  ready- 
made  opinions,  to  induce  them  to  seek  truth  outside  tradition 
and  to  reason  freely.     "You  may  discuss,"  said  St.  Bernard, 
"  provided  that  your  faith  is  impregnable."     In  his  eyes  philo- 
sophy was  the  servant  of  faith.    It  was  a  servant,  however,  which 
from  the  very  beginning  sometimes  assumed  the  attitude  of  a 


94      A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

mistress.     This  the  Church  perceived,  aud  Scholastic  Philosophy 
soon  created  no  little  trouble  for  her. 

70.  The  learned  and  subtle  Abelard  (1079-1143),  surrounded 
by  hundreds  of  disciples,  both  in  Paris  and  Champagne,  trans- 
formed the  sacraments  into  symbols  and  denied  the  power  of 
indulgences.  Condemned  by  a  Council  of  1121,  and  combated 
by  St.  Bernard,  he  ended  his  days  in  the  cloisters  of  Cluny, 
almost  as  a  captive.  Albertus  Magnus,  or  Albert  the  Great, 
the  Dominican,  was  chiefly  occupied  with  science,  and,  while 
gaining  for  himself  the  reputation  of  a  sorcerer,  contrived  to 
turn  minds  towards  the  study  of  nature  (1193-1280).  But 
the  greatest  and  most  original  of  medieval  savants  was  the 
monk  Roger  Bacon  (1214-1294),  who  passed  fourteen  years 
in  prison  under  a  charge  of  magic.  His  "  magic "  consisted 
in  searching  for  and  surprising  the  secrets  of  created  things. 
At  the  same  epoch  the  Catholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages  found 
its  most  complete  expression  in  the  great  Summa  Thcologiie  of 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  This  Italian  Dominican,  who  died  in 
1274,  aged  only  forty-nine,  was  a  man  of  genius  in  his  way. 
In  spite  of  its  crabbed  and  essentially  scholastic  character,  his 
Summa  reveals  an  intellect  that  was  almost  liberal.  The 
Papacy  of  our  day  recommends  the  study  of  his  works  as  the 
foundation  of  all  sound  theology. 

71.  To  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  the  Franciscans  opposed  a 
member  of  their  own  order  in  Duns  Scotus  (t  1308),  who  would 
now  be  completely  forgotten  but  for  the  long  rivalry  of  the 
Scotists  and  the  Thomists.  No  less  neglected  are  the  mystics 
Bonaventura,  Eckart,  and  Tauler,  on  whom,  moreover,  the 
Church  looks  askance.  But  the  chief  mystical  work  of  these 
dreary  times  is  still  read  with  emotion.  This  is  the  Imitation 
of  Christ,  sometimes  attributed  to  Jean  Gerson,  a  Paris  doctor, 
but  in  reality  the  work  of  the  canon  Thomas  k  Kempis,  of 
Deventer  (t  1471).  Disgusted  with  the  world,  and  even  with 
the  Church,  the  soul  of  the  writer  turns  wholly  towards  God, 
and  finds  peace  in  solitary  meditation. 

•  «  •  •  • 

72.  The  dawn  of  the  Renaissance  at  once  brought  new 
tendencies  into  the  world  of  thought.     The  exodus  of  Greek 


FROM  JUSTINIAN  TO   CHARLES   V  95 

scholars  from  Byzantium  introduced  the  works  of  Plato  to 
Western  Europe,  and  initiated  a  change  which  was  greatly 
hastened  by  the  invention  of  printing.  In  Italy  the  HtDnayiists 
were  inclined  towards  a  sort  of  pagan  pantheism  ;  in  Germany 
they  became  passionately  absorbed  in  the  study  of  texts,  both 
Greek  and  Hebrew,  and  inaugurated  historical  criticism.  Hans 
Reuchlin,  of  Basle  (1455-1522),  a  Hebraist  of  great  merit,  saved 
the  Jewish  books  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  the  Cologne 
Inquisition  wished  to  burn.  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam,  prince  of 
the  scholars  of  his  age,  established  himself  in  1521  at  Basle, 
which  he  made  a  focus  of  light.  In  his  elegant  Latin  he  laughs 
at  the  superstitions,  abuses,  and  ignorance  of  the  monks  with  an 
irony  worthy  of  Voltaire.  He  published  the  Greek  text  of  the 
New  Testament  for  the  first  time,  with  a  really  exact  translation 
into  Latin,  and  I'ecommended  study  of  the  Scriptures  as  the 
pious  work  par  excellence.  The  philological  science  of  the 
sacred  texts,  which  was  destined  to  destroy  the  pretensions  of 
the  Church,  recognises  Erasmus  and  Reuchlin  as  its  founders. 

73.  Even  more  than  these  keen-minded  savants,  two  men 
of  action,  John  Wyclif  and  John  Huss,  deserved  to  be  called 
reformers  before  the  Reformation.  Wyclif,  a  native  of  England 
(b.  1320),  led  a  strong  party  against  the  tyranny  and  greed  of 
the  monastic  orders,  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Roman 
Curia  and  the  idolatrous  beliefs  it  propagated.  "What  the 
Waldenses  taught  in  secret  he  preached  in  public ;  and,  with 
but  slight  modifications,  his  doctrine  was  that  of  the  Protestants 
who  appeared  more  than  a  century  after  his  death."  ^  In  1380  he 
translated  the  Bible  into  English,  which  gave  him  great  prestige 
with  the  people.  But  his  advanced  opinions  disquieted  the 
ruling  classes,  who  obliged  him  to  resign  his  chair  at  Oxford 
and  retire  into  a  country  parish,  where  he  died  in  1384.  His 
disciples,  who  were  called  Lollards,  or  "mutterers,"  were 
persecuted  after  his  death. 

74.  John  Huss  was  born  in  Bohemia  in  1373.  He  was  Rector 
of  the  University  of  Prague,  and  in  conjunction  with  his  friend 
Jerome  of  Prague,  who  had  read  Wyclif s  books,  undertook  a 
war  against  the  Papacy  in  the  name  of  the  Bible.     Driven  out 

*  Voltaire. 


96      A  SHORT  HISTORY   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  the  university,  and  a  wanderer,  but  always  commanding  an 
audience,  he  was  summoned  by  the  Emperor  Sigismund  before 
the  Council  of  Constance.  Arming  himself  with  a  safe-conduct, 
he  obeyed  the  summons  ;  but  his  safe-conduct  was  outrageously 
set  at  naught  by  the  Dominicans.  In  spite  of  the  protests  of  the 
Bohemian  deputies,  he  was  kept  in  prison  for  six  months,  and 
afterwards  brought  before  the  Council,  by  which  he  was  ordered 
to  retract  his  opinions.  On  his  refusal  they  burnt  him.  He  met 
his  death  like  a  hero.  Shortly  afterwards  they  burnt  his  friend 
Jerome  also.  Sigismund  had  behaved  like  a  coward,  and  the 
Withers  of  the  Council  like  rascals.  There  was  an  explosion  of 
fury  in  Bohemia,  where  the  sect  of  the  Calixt'mes,  who  demanded 
the  Eucharist  in  both  sorts  (chalice  and  host),  had  already 
found  many  adherents.  Calixtines  and  Hussites  united  to  claim 
for  the  reform  of  the  clergy  and  the  suppression  of  abuses. 
The  mountain  of  Tabor  became  their  fortress,  whence  they 
defied  the  armies  of  Sigismund,  and  replied  to  the  massacres 
of  Hussites  by  massacres  of  friars.  In  the  end  the  Council  of 
Basle  re-established  peace ;  but  Hussite  communities  survived 
in  both  Moravia  and  Bohemia.  The  so-called  Moravian 
Brothers,  who  have  distinguished  themselves  as  missionaries, 
were  recruited  from  what  was  left  of  the  Hussites  (1457). 
Reconstituted  after  long  persecutions  in  1722,  the  Moravians 
settled  at  Herrnhut,  in  Lusatia.  They  are  the  Qualcers  of 
Germany.  These  Herrnhutians  exercised  a  strong  influence 
over  the  English  Methodists  in  the  eighteenth  century.  They 
enlisted  many  recruits  even  in  America,  and  still  number 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  souls. 

75.  Even  in  Italy,  at  the  very  gates  of  Rome,  the  militant 
spirit  of  reform  was  blowing  up  for  tempest.  The  eloquence  of 
the  Dominican  monk  Savonarola,  directed  in  the  main  against 
immorality  and  luxury,  aroused  extraordinary  enthusiasm  at 
Florence.  Bonfires  were  made  of  pictures,  books,  women's 
ornaments.  It  was  not  long,  however,  before  this  wild  sect 
{Arrabiati)  had  to  count  with  the  ill-will  of  the  Medici  and  of 
all  those  who  depended  on  luxury  and  depravity  for  their  living. 
Florence  was  by  no  means  ripe  for  a  Calvin ;  and  yet  she  bore 
with  the  Dominican  for  eight  years.     The  flight  of  the  Medici 


FROM  JUSTINIAN  TO   CHARLES   V  97 

and  the  invasion  of  Italy  by  Charles  VIII.  seemed  at  first  to 
confirm  his  forecasts.  But  as  soon  as  the  French  king  left  the 
country  Rome  excommunicated  Savonarola,  and  Alexander  VI. 
(Borgia)  determined  to  make  short  work  of  him.  As  Alexander 
was  a  voluptuary  himself,  the  Dominican  attacked  him  openly, 
and  was  foolish  enough  to  offer  to  prove  his  own  innocence  by 
undergoing  the  ordeal  of  fire.  At  the  last  moment  he  shrank 
from  the  test,  and  the  Fi'anciscans,  his  sworn  enemies,  took  the 
offensive  against  him.  Condemned  as  a  heretic  by  the  Inquisition, 
he  expiated  his  reforming  ardour  at  the  stake  (1498). 

Voltaire  thus  concludes  his  account  of  these  events :  "  You 
follow  these  scenes  of  absurdity  and  horror  with  pity ;  you  find 
nothing  like  them  among  the  Romans,  the  Greeks,  or  the  old 
barbarians.  They  were  the  fruit  of  the  most  infamous  supersti- 
tion which  has  ever  degraded  man.  ,  .  .  But  you  know  that 
we  have  not  long  emerged  from  such  darkness,  and  that  not 
even  yet  is  the  light  complete." 

•  •  •  •  • 

76.  The  repression  of  unacceptable  opinions,  considered  to 
be  offences  against  God,  was  at  first  left  to  the  bishops  and  the 
secular  priests.  But  the  progress  of  the  Albigensian  heresy 
convinced  the  Holy  See  that  a  special  organisation,  entirely 
dependent  on  Rome,  was  required  to  make  head  against  such 
formidable  dangers.  The  bishops  were  too  much  occupied,  too 
indulgent,  too  accessible  to  local  considerations.  From  1215  to 
1229,  between  the  fourth  Lateran  Council  and  the  Synod 
of  Toulouse,  the  nascent  Inquisition  felt  its  way.  In  1232 
Gregory  IX.  created  the  tribunals  of  the  Inquisition  to  deal 
with  heretical  perversity  {hccretica  pravitas),  and  put  the 
Dominicans  in  charge  of  them.  The  term  "Inquisition"  was 
borrowed  from  the  juridical  language  of  ancient  Rome.  In- 
quisition is  an  inquiry,  set  afoot  by  denunciations  or  merely  on 
suspicion,  having  for  its  object  to  compel  those  suspected  to  prove 
the  orthodoxy  of  their  beliefs.  The  tribunals  of  the  Inquisition 
were  empowered  to  condemn  their  victims  to  be  imprisoned,  to 
be  flogged,  to  go  on  distant  pilgrimages,  to  wear  disgraceful 
badges  which  prevented  them  from  earning  their  bread  ;  but 
they  could  not  inflict  the  punishment  of  death :  this  would  have 
II 


98      A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

violated  the  axiom  "  The  Church  has  a  horror  of  blood,"  a  prin- 
ciple which  forbade,  for  instance,  a  priest  to  practise  surgery. 
It  was  in  obedience  to  this  principle  that  a  bishop  of  Beauvais, 
in  the  time  of  Philip  Augustus,  used  a  mace  in  battle  instead  of 
a  lance,  saying  it  would  be  irregular  for  him  to  shed  human 
blood.^  The  Inquisition,  however,  concocted  a  device  which 
allowed  it  to  be  sanguinary  without  "irregularity.""  When  it 
considered  one  of  its  prisoners  to  be  worthy  of  death,  it  an- 
nounced that  the  Church  could  do  nothing  more  for  him,  that 
he  was  cut  off'  from  her  and  abandoned  to  the  secular  arm— that 
is,  to  the  civil  magistrates.  These  latter  were  directed  to  burn 
him  alive.  If  they  hesitated,  the  Church  threatened  them  with 
excommunication.  Thus  she  combined  hypocrisy  with  cruelty. 
All  this  did  not  prevent  sophists  like  Joseph  de  Maistre  from 
affirming,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  that  blood  has  never  been 
shed  by  the  Church ;  she  had  contented  herself  with  forcing 
the  civil  power  to  shed  it  for  her !  Not  only  was  the  Papacy 
responsible  for  the  Inquisition;  it  actively  encouraged  and 
excited  its  ferocity.  The  horrible  punishment  of  death  by  fire 
was  formally  prescribed  by  Rome  (1231),  and  indulgences  were 
promised  to  those  who  provided  faggots  for  the  purpose.  As 
a  well-meaning  old  woman  at  Constance  deposited  a  faggot 
at  the  feet  of  John  Huss,  "  Oh  1  sacred  simplicity,"  said  the 
martyr,  with  a  smile. 

77.  Frightful  as  were  the  punishments  inflicted  by  the 
Inquisition — and  imprisonment  for  life  in  pestilential  gaols  was 
perhaps  worse  than  death  at  the  stake — its  methods  of  procedure 
were  still  more  abominable.  The  accused,  who  was  generally 
some  poor  wretch  without  education,  had  to  do  without  counsel, 
for  an  advocate  would  have  been  accused  of  impeding  the 
Inquisition,  and  prosecuted  in  his  turn.  He  did  not  know  of 
what  he  was  accused  ;  he  knew  neither  the  names  of  the  witnesses 
against  him  nor  the  nature  of  their  depositions.  Captious 
questions  were  put  to  him  ;  traps  were  laid  for  him  ;  he  was 
induced  to  accuse  himself.  If  he  proved  obdurate  he  was 
tortured.  To  torture  more  than  once  was  forbidden,  but  the 
torture  was  "  continued,'"'  even  after  a  long  interval,  if  at  first 

^  Voltaire. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V  99 

it  had  not  produced  the  desired  effect.  Now,  St.  Augustine 
had  insisted  on  the  absurdity  of  torture  ;  Pope  Nicholas  I.  had 
forbidden  the  use  of  it  (866);  Gratian  condemned  it  (1150). 
So  when  Innocent  IV.  enjoined  it  to  extort  confessions  from 
Italian  heretics  (1252),  he  could  not  even  plead  ignorance  as 
an  excuse. 

Manuals  for  the  guidance  of  inquisitors  are  still  extant,  with 
their  schemes  of  interrogatories.  They  are  monuments  of 
astute  trickery.  The  chief  object  of  "the  question" — as 
torture  was  called — was  to  oblige  the  accused  to  denounce  his 
accomplices,  or  those  who  shai'ed  his  opinions.  One  can 
imagine  how  many  innocent  victims  must  have  been  dragged 
before  such  tribunals,  which,  as  a  consummation  of  their 
infamy,  took  possession  of  the  property  they  confiscated  and 
handed  it  over  to  the  Holy  See.  They  had  the  power  to  put 
a  man  who  had  been  dead  for  forty  years  on  his  trial  for 
heresy,  and,  if  he  were  convicted,  to  dig  up  and  burn  his  body, 
strip  his  heirs  of  their  property,  and  reduce  his  family  to 
misery  and  despair.  Such  was  the  regime  established  by  the 
Dominican  Inquisition  in  the  south  of  France,  and  extended 
so  far  as  possible  to  the  other  nations  of  Christendom. 

78.  We  are  speaking  here  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  called  the  Papal  or  Holy  Inquisition^  and  the  Holy  Ojfice, 
because  it  depended  on  the  Holy  See.  Further  on  we  shall 
discuss  the  Royal  Inquisition  of  Spain,  the  only  one  of  which 
the  general  public  has  some  knowledge.  The  former  was  the 
more  atrocious  and  pitiless  of  the  two.  It  burnt  Albigenses, 
Waldenses,  Hussites  and  witches  by  the  thousand.  It  meanly 
placed  itself  at  the  service  of  the  political  authorities,  satisfying 
their  cupidity  and  their  revenge,  as  when  it  burnt  the  innocent 
Knights  of  the  Temple  and  the  innocent  Joan  of  Arc.  It 
covered  the  world  with  desolation  and  terror,  until  kings  and 
rulers,  disgusted  by  its  arbitrary  proceedings,  had  gradually 
proscribed  its  entrance  into  their  States.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  how  such  horrors  could  have  been  submitted  to  by 
one  part  of  Europe  for  century  after  century.  Such  toleration 
is  only  to  be  explained  by  the  idea  the  Church  had  implanted  in 
the  hearts  of  the  people,  who  thought  heresy,  the  crime  against 


100     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

God,  to  be  the  worst  of  crimes,  one  which  exposed  a  city,  a  pro- 
vince, or  a  nation  to  the  divine  anger,  and  to  such  punishments  as 
floods,  pestilence,  and  famine,  if  it  were  not  promptly  and  sternly 
suppressed.  The  heretic  had  to  be  treated  like  one  stricken  by 
the  plague,  or  rather  like  his  garments,  which  are  thrown  into 
the  fire  without  hesitation.  Again,  the  sight  of  these  solemn 
executions,  to  which  people  flocked  as  if  to  a  fete^  hardened 
hearts,  awakened  hereditary  instincts  of  ferocity,  and  made  the 
populace  indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  others.  Indeed,  the 
long  duration  of  the  Inquisition  is  not  so  surprising  as  the  fact 
that  means  were  found  to  put  an  end  to  it. 

79.  Except  in  Spain,  where  its  flourishing  period  was  just 
setting  in,  the  Inquisition  was  greatly  discredited  at  the  opening 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  This  was  one  cause  of  the  comparative 
success  of  the  Reformation.  If  they  had  found  themselves  in 
presence  of  the  formidable  Inquisitors  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
the  Reformers  would  have  met  the  same  fate  as  the  Albigenses, 

80.  Satan  was  all-pervading  in  the  Middle  Ages,  both  as  god 
of  evil  and  as  dispenser  of  worldly  wealth.  This  belief  was  not 
created  by  the  Church,  any  more  than  the  idea  that  certain 
women,  having  made  a  bargain  with  the  devil,  betook  themselves 
to  the  "  Sabbath "  on  grotesque  steeds,  and  there  acquired 
redoubtable  powers  for  evil.  These  tenacious  superstitions  had 
an  ancient  pagan  and  Germanic  foundation.  But  the  better 
instructed  Church  ought  not  to  have  shared  them.  Not  only 
did  she  do  so,  but  her  theologians,  pointing  to  the  verse  of 
Exodus,  "  Thou  shalt  not  suff'er  a  witch  to  live,"  organised  witch 
hunts  with  the  help  of  the  Inquisition,  and  stirred  up  the  civil 
power  to  do  likewise.  Denounced  by  gossips  and  subjected  to 
frightful  tortures,  the  unhappy  women  avowed  that  they  had 
joined  in  a  "  Sabbath,"  and  gave  details  of  imaginary  orgies. 
They  were  burnt  in  crowds,  and  their  punishments  both  inflamed 
imaginations  and  loosened  tongues.  Every  inquisitor  who 
received  a  mandate  to  suppress  witchcraft  became  an  active 
missionary  in  spreading  it.  People's  minds  grew  familiar  with 
the  idea  that  they  were  surrounded  by  sorceries,  and  that  the 
least  misfortune  was  the  result  of  some  witch's  malignity. 
Wherever  an  inquisitor  came,  he  found  himself  overwhelmed 


FROM  JUSTINIAN  TO   CHARLES   V  101 

with  denunciations,  accusing  every  one  who  might  be  sup- 
posed guilty,  from  young  people  to  very  old  women.  The 
epidemic  was  greatly  increased  by  the  publication  of  the  Bull 
Summis  desiderantes,  launched  by  Innocent  VIII.  on  December  5, 
1484.  In  it  the  Pope  affirms  with  sorrow  that  all  the  Germanic 
territories  are  filled  with  men  and  women  who  put  the  maleficent 
power  of  sorcery  in  action  against  the  faithful.  He  describes 
the  results  with  a  terrifying  wealth  of  detail.  ...  To  contest 
the  reality  of  witchcraft  was,  therefore,  to  throw  doubt  on  the 
authority  of  Christ's  vicar  on  earth. ^ 

Under  the  sceptical  Pope  Leo  X.,  the  friend  of  Bembo  and 
Raphael,  hundreds  of  witches  were  burnt  in  the  Lombard  and 
Venetian  valleys.  It  was  in  Germany,  however,  that  the  fury  of 
the  Dominican  inquisitors  piled  up  the  greatest  heaps  of  victims. 
Two  of  these  inquisitors  published  an  absurd  book, "  The  Hammer 
of  Witches,"  in  which  they  pointed  out  the  signs  by  which  such 
women  might  be  recognised  and  the  means  by  which  avowals 
might  be  extorted  from  them.  The  witch  hunts  lasted  through- 
out the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  It  has  been  calcu- 
lated that  100,000  were  burnt  in  Germany  alone.  It  may  be 
undeniable  that  in  this  business  the  civil  tribunals  showed  them- 
selves even  more  savage  and  credulous  than  those  of  the  Church  ; 
that— even  in  America,  in  the  eighteenth  century— the  Protes- 
tant communities  were  no  less  so  ;  it  is  none  the  less  true  that 
the  Roman  Church,  in  giving  its  official  sanction  to  prosecutions 
for  witchcraft  and  in  appointing  inquisitors  for  its  suppression, 
must  bear  the  chief  responsibility  for  a  murderous  frenzy  which 
confounds  and  mortifies  human  reason. ^ 

.  .  •  •  ■ 

8L  Before  the  Reformation,  the    only  great  schism  which 
succeeded  was  that  of  the  Eastern  Empire. 

^ 

'  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition,  toI.  iii. 

*  The  most  celebrated  case  of  sorcery  in  the  seventeenth  century  was  that 
of  Urbain  Grandier,  a  parish  priest.  He  was  accused  of  having  bewitched  the 
Ursulines  of  Loudun  by  throwing  a  branch  of  laurel  into  their  convent.  Pro- 
secuted with  atrocious  virulence  by  the  Counsellor  Laubardemont,  a  creature 
of  Richelieu,  he  was  convicted  of  black  magic  and  burnt  alive  (1634).  The 
most  extraordinary  part  of  the  business  is  that  Cardinal  Richelieu,  by  whom 
the  prosecution  was  inspired,  seems  to  have  believed  in  all  good  faith  that  a 
priest  could  bewitch  nuns.  Writing  but  fifty  years  later,  Bossuet  never  alludes 
to  witchcraft,  though  he  was  too  prudent  to  deny  its  existence. 


102    A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Since  the  time  of  Theodosius,  Byzantium  had  become  the 
New  Rome " ;  so  it  was  but  natural  that  she  should  claim 
supremacy  over  the  other  Oriental  Churches,  especially  that  of 
Alexandria,  About  the  year  500,  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople 
received  from  the  Emperor  the  title  of  Ecumenical  Patriarch, 
that  is  to  say,  Patriarch  of  the  Empire  (not  of  the  Universe,  as 
they  pretended  to  interpret  it  in  Rome).  The  Western  Church 
rendered  good  jservice  to  the  Eastern  in  the  quarrel  over  images, 
when  the  seventh  and  last  council  before  the  schism,  that  of 
Nicaea,  put  an  end  to  the  Iconoclastic  feud  (787).  But  the 
pretensions  of  Rome  to  the  government  of  all  Christendom  soon 
became  intolerable  in  the  city  of  Constantine.  As  early  as  the 
ninth  century  the  Patriarch  Photios  protested  against  the 
innovations  of  Rome.  The  dispute  was  envenomed  by  the  dis- 
agreement over  the  so-called  "  procession  "  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Did  the  Holy  Ghost  proceed  from  both  the  Father  and  the 
Son  ?  No,  said  the  Eastern  Church,  from  the  Father  alone. 
This  was  the  substance  of  the  FUioque  quarrel.  The  two 
churches  failed  to  come  to  an  agreement.  The  causes,  however, 
of  their  antagonism  were  in  reality  more  profound,  and  were  of 
a  political  nature.  The  divorce,  which  still  endures,  was  com- 
pleted about  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century  by  the  mutual 
anathemas  of  the  Pope  and  the  Patriarch.  The  Maronites  of 
the  Lebanon  and,  to  a  small  extent,  the  Armenians,  alone 
remained  faithful  to  their  Roman  allegiance. 

82.  Attempts  at  reunion  were  not  lacking.  It  was  thought 
that  success  had  crowned  these  efforts  at  the  Council  of  Florence 
in  1439,  when  the  Byzantines,  in  fear  of  the  Turks,  made  all  the 
concessions  demanded.  But  the  people,  who  had  not  forgotten 
the  horrors  worked  by  the  Latins  in  1204,  refused  to  confirm 
the  agreement.  Constantinople  fell  to  the  infidels,  sent  by  God 
to  punish  heretics.  The  latest  attempt  was  due  to  Leo  XHI. 
(July  1894),  who  addressed  a  most  conciliatory  letter  to  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople.  The  latter  replied  with  some 
violence  (August  1895),  recalling  all  the  innovations  of  the 
Roman  Church  :  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeding  from  the  Son, 
Purgatory,  the  Innnaculate  Conception,  Papal  Infallibility  ;  and 
there   the   matter   rests.     Other   differences   between   the   two 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V         103 

Churches  have  to  do  with  the  baptismal  rite — the  Greeks  prac- 
tising total  immersion,  like  the  Primitive  Church — and  the 
Eucharist,  in  which  they  give  leavened  bread,  dipped  in  wine,  to 
the  communicant,  instead  of  a  dry,  unleavened  wafer. 

83.  The  Eastern  Church,  which  calls  itself  the  Orthodox  or 
Greek  Church,  numbers  150  millions  of  adherents.  It  is  sub- 
divided into  fifteen  Churches,  each  with  its  own  head  and  its  own 
hierarchy.  The  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  great  personage 
though  he  be,  has  no  real  authority.  He  has  for  a  long  time 
been  on  bad  terms  with  the  Churches  of  Bulgaria  and  Rou- 
mania.  The  Russian  Church  was  not  governed  by  the  Czar,  but 
by  the  Holy  Synod,  whose  procurator,  however,  was  nominated 
by  the  Czar.  The  priests  of  the  Greek  Church  marry,  but  do 
not  remarry.  Bishops  are  chosen  from  among  the  unmarried 
monks.  Nuns  are  not  much  esteemed  and  live  apart  from  the  com- 
munity. In  the  pomp  of  its  ceremonial  and  its  borrowings  from 
paganism,  notably  its  use  of  incense  and  wax  candles  and  its 
adoration  of  images,  the  Orthodox  Church  stands  closer  to 
Romanism  than  to  the  Reformed  Churches,  These  dallied  with 
her,  nevertheless,  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the 
Anglican  Church  has  not  abandoned  the  game  even  now.  The 
Russian  moujiky  or  peasant,  has  remained  more  pagan  than 
Christian.  His  real  religion  belongs  to  the  domain  of  folk-lore. 
The  Hellene  is  profoundly  sceptical,  but  clings  to  his  Church  as 
the  safeguard  of  his  nationality.  It  has  been  said  that  the  Greek 
awaited  the  restoration  of  his  independence  for  four  centuries, 
in  the  shadow  of  his  Church.  This  is  true.  Enslaved  Greece 
was  nourished  by  her  Church  as  an  infant  in  swaddling-clothes  is 
nourished  by  milk.  But  this  is  no  reason  why  the  adolescent 
should  continue  to  live  on  milk.  If  the  Greeks  of  to-day,  like 
the  Byzantine  Greeks  of  the  Middle  Ages,  are  inferior  to  their 
glorious  ancestors,  their  inferiority  seems  to  be  in  some  degree 
imputable  to  their  Church.  It  familiarises  them,  from  their 
earliest  youth,  with  horrible  colour-daubs  which  it  calls  Icons, 
with  drawling  and  nasal  voices,  with  stories  of  the  saints  which 
are  an  outrage  on  reason.  The  modern  Greeks,  though  very 
intelligent,  are  no  artists,  they  cannot  sing  in  tune,  and  they 
have  not  yet  given  a  man  of  genius  to  the  world. 


104     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

84.  Their  long  struggles  with  the  Mongols,  the  Musulmans, 
and  the  Latins  have  kept  the  Eastern  Churches  conservative  and 
nationalist.  For  the  people,  forms  of  worship  are  more  important 
than  creeds.  Divine  service  is  performed  in  the  national 
languages,  but  archaic  forms  no  longer  understood  by  the  com- 
monalty are  employed.  The  sacred  books  play  a  great  part  in 
worship,  but  they  are  not  generally  used  in  the  vernacular.  In 
March  1903,  the  publication  of  a  translation  of  the  Gospels 
caused  a  popular  outbi'eak  in  Athens.  Festivals  do  not  coincide 
with  those  of  the  Roman  Church,  because  the  Greek  Church  is 
faithful  to  the  Julian  Calendar,  which  is  now  thirteen  days 
behind  ours.  There  is  no  regular  process  for  the  canonisation 
of  saints,  who  consequently  swarm,  and  work  miracles  through 
their  images.  Pilgrimages,  especially  to  Jerusalem,  are  held  in 
great  honoui',  and  the  adoration  of  relics  is  no  less  flourishing 
than  in  the  Roman  Church,  The  clergy  and  the  monks  are 
held  in  slight  consideration.  "  You  are  good  for  nothing,"  says 
a  Greek  song,  "  become  a  pope  [jjappas] !  " 

The  lack  of  real  Christianity  in  the  Russian  Empire  explains 
the  lack  of  popular  resistance  to  atheistic  Bolshevism  (1917). 
The  protests  of  the  higher  clergy  remained  unheeded  ;  convents 
and  churches  were  sacked,  priests  and  nuns  killed  or  grossly 
insulted.  A  reaction,  partly  due  to  the  intense  misery  of  the 
people,  especially  in  the  towns,  has  made  itself  felt  since  1919; 
large  audiences  flocked  again  into  the  churches  ;  associations 
were  formed  to  feed  the  clergy.  But  the  tendency  seems  to  be 
rather  towards  mysticism  and  illuminism  thaii  in  favour  of  the 
anti(juated  formalist  religion  which  discredited  itself,  in  auto- 
cratic Russia,  by  a  too  close  alliance  with  the  police. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  most  abundant  source  of  information  is  the  Rcal-Eivydojiddic  of  Hauck. 
Reference  may  also  be  made  to  the  Biographie  Univcrsdle  of  Michaud,  to 
the  Orande  EncydopMie  and  tlie  Eiicyd.  Britannica,  and  to  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography  (Stephen  and  Lee). 

1.  P.  VioUet,  Histoire  des  Institutions  politiques  dt  la  France,  3  vols.,  1890 
(on  the  beneficent  part  played  by  the  Church,  vol.  i,  p.  380). 

2.  Art.  Armenfiege  (Charity)  in  Hauck. 

4.  The  Truce  of  God  is  found  among  the  Germans,  Arabs,  and  other  nations. 
See  art.  Oottesfriede  in  Hauck. — JSemichon,  La  Paix  de  Dieu,  2nd  ed.,  18(39. 

5.  Em.  Male,  L'art  religieux  du  XIII*  siecle,  1902. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN  TO   CHARLES   V         105 

8.  Art.  Jugustinus,  Bonifatius  {Winfrid),  Gregorius,  Keltische  Kirche,  Russ- 
lancl  in  Hauck  ;  Dom  Cabrol,  L'Angletcrre  chriticnne  arant  Us  Normands,  1908  ; 
H.  Howorth,  Early  English  CJmrch,  3  vole.,  1917  ;  S.  Czarnowski,  Samt  Patrick, 
1919  ;  J.  Zeiller,  Les  orig.  chrit.  dans  les  prov.  danuhienncs,  1918. 

9.  Art.  Cyrillus  und  Methodius,  Tschechcn  (Bohemians),  Anghkamsche 
Kirche,  Mmigohn,  Nestorianer,  in  Hauck.— J.  Labourt,  Le  Christiantsme  dans 
r Empire  Perse,  1904. 

10.  Art.  Sachscn,   Wendcn,  Albert  von  Riga  (Livonia)  in  Hauck. 

11.  Art.  Kreuzauffindung,  in  Hauck.— A.  Luchaire,  Le  Culte  des  rehques 
(in  Rcvut  de  Paris,  July  1900). 

13.  Art.  Lrgaten  in  Hauck. 

15.  Lea,  Rise  of  the  Temporal  Power  (\n  Studies,  1883,  p.  1  et  srq.);  Ducliesne, 
Les  Premiers  Temps  de  I'J^tat  Pontifical,  1904.— Th.  Hodgkin,  Italy  and  her 
Invaders,  vol.  vii.,  p.  135  (1899)  ;  M.  Moresco,  II patrimonio  di  S.  Pietro,  1916  ; 
A.  Gauilenzi,  II  ronstituto  di  Constantino,  1920. 

16.  Lea,  Studies,  18S3,  p.  46  (forged  decretals)  ;  art.  Kanonenund  Decreten- 
Sammlungen  and  Pseudoisidor  in  Hauck  ;  P.  Fournier,  Etude  sur  les  fanssrs 
d&rdales,  1907  (decided  in  favour  of  Touraine  rather  than  the  neighbourhood 
of  Reims  or  of  Metz)  ;  Lot,  Rev.  Inst.,  1907,  xciv.,  p.  290. 

17.  Lea,  Auricular  Confession  and  Indulgences,  3  vols.,  1896. 

18.  Art.  Peterspjennig  (Peter's  Pence)  in  Hauck. 

19.  Lea,  Studies,  1883,  p.  235  (excommunication). 

20.  Duchesne,  OrigiJies  du  Culte  chrititn,  1899  ;  art.  Liturgie  in  Hauck. 

21.  Art.  Simonie  in  Hauck. 

22.  The  sources  are  given  in  F.  X.  Funk,  Lehrhuch  cW  Kirchcngeschichte, 
5th  ed.,  p.  281  ;  Villemain,  Grt'goire  VII.,  1873  ;  A.  Fliche,  S.  Gr&joireVIL, 
1920.     See  also  art.  Gregorius  VII.  in  Hauck,  with  a  copious  bibliography. 

24.  Art.  Becket  in  Hauck. 

26.  A.  Luchaire,  Innocent  III.,  4  vols.,  1904-1908;  E.  W.  Meyer, 
Slaatstheorien  Innvz.  III.,  1920. 

27    Frederick   II.,  the   heretics  and   free   thought:    Lea,   History  oj  tfie 
Inquisition,  vol.  i.  ;  Ch.   V.   Langlois,  Philippe  le  Bel  et  Boniface  VIII.   (in 
Lavisse,  Hisfoire  de  France,  iii.  2,  1901)  ;  H.  Koehler,  Die  Kctzerpolitikder  d 
Kaiser,   1913  ;   the  legend  of  the  three  impostors   is   of  Islamic  origin   and 
appears  as  early  as  909  (Rev.  hist.  Utt.  rel..  May  1920). 

29.  N.  Valois,  Histoire  du  grand  schisme  d' Occident,  4:  vols.,  189b-190.:;  ; 
Le  pape  et  le  Concile,  1909  ;  Journal  des  Savants,  1905,  p.  345  (on  the  Council 
of  Basle). 

30.  Burckhardt,  CtJ^ur  dcr  iJen/T^s.OTMc^,  5th  ed.,  1906.  n^     ,t     ^ 

31.  0.  Zoeckler,  Askese  und  Monchtum  (Western),  2nd  ed.,  1897;  Mont- 
alembert.  Les  Moines  d'Occident,  2  vols.,  1860;  Vacandard,  Saint  Bernard, 
2  vols.,  1895  (abridged  in  1904).  See  also  under  the  names  of  the  dififerent 
religious  orders  in  Hauck. 

33.  P.  Sabatier,  Vie  de  St.  Francois,  1894  (numerous  editions  and  transla- 
tions);  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition,  vols,  ii,  iii  (persecution  of  the  fraticclli) ; 
F.  van  der  Borne,  Die  Franziskusforschung,  1917  ;  Ubald  d'Alengon,  Lerons 
d'hist.  franciscaint,  1918.  .         ,  t,    i  i,  •      n 

36.  S.  Reinach,  Rev.  Ais<.,  1920,  cxxxiii.,  p.  193  (St.  Francis  and  Buddhism). 

2,1.  'Dommicd.ns:  lies.,  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition,  vo\.'\. 

38.  Gebhart,  Sainte  Catherine  de  Sienne  (in  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1890, 
vol.  xcv  ,  reprinted  in  Ultalie  Mystique). — Art.  Stigmatisation  in  Hauck. 

39.  Templars :  Lea,  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition,  vol.  iii.  ;  H.  Finke,  Papstwn 
und  Templerorden,  1907  ('•/.  Langlois,  Journal  des  Savants,  1908,  p.  417)  ;  S.  R., 
Cultf's,  vol.  iv.,  p.  252  ;  P.  VioUet,  Uinterrogatoirc  de  J.  de  Molai,  1909. 

40.  Art.  Adoptianismus  in  Hauck  ;  Conybeare,  Key  of  Truth,  1898,  p.  87. 
41    G.    Herzog,  La   Sainte   Vierge  dar^  I'histoire,   1908.— Holy   House  of 

Loretto  :  U.  Chevalier,   N.   D.  de  LoretM,   1906  (c/.   Uelaborde,  Journal  des 
Savants,  1907,  p.  367  ;  Rev.  arch.,  1906,  ii.  p.  460). 

42.  Art.  Maria  in  Hauck  ;  Vacandard,  Rev.  du  Clergi,  April  1,  1910.— 
Lea,  Hiit.  of  the  Inquisition,  vol.  iii. 


106     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

44.  H.  Delehaye,  Les  Legindes  hagiograpUques,  1905  ;  P.  Saintyves,  Les 
Saints  successexirs  des  dieux,  1907;  Boudinhon,  Froch  de  Ratification  et  canoni- 
sation, 1905. — Pedro  Arbues  :  Lea,  Inquisition  oj  Sjiain,  vol.  i.  ;  Peter  Martyr  : 
Lea,  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages,  vol.  ii. 

45.  T.  de  Wyzewa,  La  Ligende  Doric  (a  readable  translation),  1902. 

46.  Art.  3Iesse  in  Hauck. 

47.  Art.  Transubstantiation  in  Hauck ;  A.  Boudinhon,  Les  Origines  de 
I'Sh'mtion  (in  the  Rev.  du  clergi,  June-July  1908,  pp.  535,  \o%).—Arcani  disci- 
plma:  Ba.tifi'o\,  Etudes  d'Histoire,  p.  I  et  seq.  ;  &tL  A rcanidiscipli7iain  Hastings, 
£n cyclop.,  vol.  i. 

49.  Lea,  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition,  vol.  ii. 

50.  Art.  Fronhichnamsfest  (Feast  of  Corpus  Christi)  in  Hauck. 

51.  Prohibition  to  read  or  translate  the  Bible  :  Lea,  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition, 
vols,  i.,  iii. — Art.  Gehct,  Rosenkranz  (rosary),  and  Sahrament  in  Hauck. 

52.  Lea,  Auricular  Confession  and  Indulqences^,  3  vols. ,  1896. — A.  Boudinhon, 
Histoire  de  la^FSnitence,  1879  (criticism  on  Lea) ;  Batilfol,  Les  Origines  de  la 
Finitence  (in  Etudes  d' Histoire,  p.  43). 

53.  Upon  the  question  of  Woman  and  Christianity,  .see  a  learned  note  by 
Lejay,  Rev.  crit.,  1908,  i.  p.  79. 

54.  Allerseelentag  (Commcmoratio  fidelium  defunctoriiin)  in  Hauck  ;  Saint- 
yves, Les  Saints,  &c.,  p.  83. 

55.  Art.  Imlulgenzen  in  Hauck. 

56.  Lea,  Hist,  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy,  3rd  ed.,  2  vols.,  1907. 

57.  J.  Havet,  L'hirisic  et  le  bras  stculier  jusqiCau  XIU'  siecle  (reprinted  in 
his  CEuvrcs,  vol.  ii.,  1896)  ;  H.  Ch.  Lea,  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  1888  ;  E.  Jordan,  La  resjionsab.  de  I'JSglisc  dans  la  repression,  1915. 

58.  Art.  Narrenfcsf  (Feast  of  Fools)  in  Hauck. 

59.  L.  Brehier,  La  Querellc  dcs  Images,  1904. 

60.  et  seq.  —All  the  details  will  be  found  in  Lea's  work  (§  56),  which  has  an 
excellent  index. 

63.  Paulicians  inspired  by  Paul  of  Samosata :  Conybeare,  Key  of  Truth, 
1898,  pp.  cv.  tt  seq. — Albigenses  :  A.  Luchaire,  Innocent  III.  et  la  Croisade  des 
Albigcois,  1905  (cf.  Journal  des  Savants,  1905,  p.  528  ;  1908,  p.  17) ;  J.  Guiraud, 
Quest.  d'Archiologie  et  d' Histoire,  1906  ;  E.  Broekx,  Le  catharisme,  1916. 

64.  The  Inquisition  glorified  :  Rev.  arch.,  1907,  ii.  p.  184;  Rev.  crit.,  1907. 
i.  p.  211.  f  »  .  . 

65.  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition,  vol.  i. 

66.  Art.  Waldenscr  (Vaudois,  or  Waldenses)  in  Hauck  ;  J.  Marx,  L'inquis. 
en  Banpldni,  1914. 

67.  Flagellants:  Lea,  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition,  vols.  i.  and  ii. 

68.  See  Fredericq's  preface  to  the  French  translation  of  Lea's  Hist,  of  the 
Inquisition, 

69.  B.  Haur^au,  Histoire  de  la  Fhilosophie  scolastique,  1872  ;  Prantl,  Gcsch. 
der  Logik  im  Abendlande,  4  vols.,  1855-1870;  F.  Picavet,  Histoire  gdniralc  des 
Philoso2?hies  m&Hdvales,  1906  ;  M.  Grabniann,  Oesch.  der  scolast.  Mcthode,  2  vols., 
1909  ;  Ch.  de  Remusat,  S.  Anselme,  2nd  ed.,  1868  ;  Vacandard,  Abdard  et  S. 
Bernard,  1881  ;  V.  Cousin,  Introd.  aux  oiuvrcs  d'AbSlard,  1836. 

Hauck  adds  a  long  bibliography  to  his  article  Scholastik. 

70.  R.Bacon:  Journal  drs  Savants,  1905,  p.  362.  — Vaughan,  S.  Thomas  of 
Jquin,  2  vols.,  1871  ;  and  the  art.  Thomas  von  Aquin,  in  Hauck. 

71.  Preger,  Gesch.  der  deutschcn  Mystik  im  MitteJalter,  3  vols.,  1879-1893. 
On  the  Imitatio,  see  art.  Thomas  cl  Kempis  in  Hauck  (vol.  xix.  p.  719),  and 
Vacandard,  Rev.  du  clergi,  December  1908,  p.  633 ;  F.  Pelster,  Krit.  Stud,  zu 
Albert  dem  Grossen,  1920. 

72.  J.  Burckhardt,  Die  Kultur  der  Renaissance,  5th  ed.,  2  vols.,  1896  ;  art. 
Erasmus  and  Reuchlin  in  Hauck. 

73.  Wyclif,  Huss,  Lollards  :  Lea,  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition,  vol.  ii. 

74.  Moravians  and  Herrnhutians :  art.  Brudcr  (bohmische)  and  Zinzendorf 
(re-founder  of  the  Herrnhutians)  in  Hauck. 

75.  Savonarola  :  Lea,  Hut.  of  tht  Inquisition,  vol.  iii. 


FROM   JUSTINIAN   TO   CHARLES   V         107 

76  Art.  Inqumtion  in  Hauck.  On  the  scruple  touching  the  shedding  of 
blood,  see  Lea,  Hist,  of  the  Inquisition  vol.  i. 

77  Torture  :  Lea,  Superstition  and  Farce,  1892,  pp.  429,  484. 

So.'  A  German  translation  of  the  Malleus  Jnaleficar^m^  appeared  m  1906 
in  3  vols      (On  the  sources  of  that  book,  see  the  Rev.  crt«-   19^^     ^i         I' 
T    Hansen    Z«X.-a/5n,  /«yu/./<fo;^  wnrf  Hexevprozesse    1900  ;  Hoensbroech. 
L  A"  i.1^^'-^-«--.  ^-«u.«An.  I901.-See  alao  the  art.  ^.x.n  in  Hauck, 

n5:^if  S- •{S^i^f'SS;  In^-Cck  ;  ra^oi:;.  L'^^^^^y^^^  ^ 
5^7  A  5^7,  1905  ;  C.  Callinicos,  The  Greek  Orthodox  Church  1918  ,  Pisani,  A 
travers  VOrient    1897  ;  Giraud,  Rev.  du  Clcrge,  Feb.  15,  1910. 

82  Ar  ^/rmm-i'^r...,  in  Hauck.  On  the  Encyclical  of  Leo.  XIH.  and 
thP  Pntriarch's  slichting  reply,  see  the  Rev.  Anglo- Romaine,  189o,  pp.  108  et 
'1;  -Orthe  flotation  of  the  Anglicans  with  the  Greek  Church  :  Rev.  du  Clergi, 

March  1908,  p.  550. 

84.  S.  R.,  in  .Rerifg  cr?^!!Z««,  1922,  p.  167. 


CHAPTER    IV 

CHRISTIANITY  :    FROM    LUTHER    TO    THE    ENCYCLOPAEDIA 

Causes  of  the  Reformation— Martin  Luther— Diet  of  Worms — The  Ana- 
baptists and  the  Peasants'  War— Zwingli— Calvin  at  Geneva— Michael 
Servetus— Henry  VIII.  and  the  Anglican  Church— Mary  Tudor— Elizabeth 
— The  Reformation  in  France — Massacre  of  the  Waldenses. 

The  Counter- Reformation— New  Policy  of  the  Church— The  Council  of 
Trent— Progress  of  Catholicism— The  Jesuits  —Protestant  Sects— Philip 
II.  and  William  the  Silent. 

Charles  I.  and  the  English  Rebellion— James  II.  and  William  of  Orange 
—The  Persecutions  in  Ireland— The  Pilgrim  Fathers— The  Quakers— The 
Thirty  Years'  War — German  Pietism- Socinus. 

France  under  the  last  Valois— Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew— Edict  of 
Nantes— Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes— The  Dragonades— The 
Camisards — Responsibility  of  the  Roman  Church— The  Earliest  Ideas  of 
Toleration — New  Religious  Orders— The  Liberties  of  the  Galilean 
Church— The  Four  Articles  of  1682— Jansenism  and  Port  Royal— The 
Bull  Unigenitus — Quietism  :  F6nelon  and  Bossuet. 

The  Inquisition  in  Spain  :  Torquemada — Expulsion  of  the  Jews  and 
Moors — Conquest  and  Christianisation  of  America. 

Condemnation  of  Giordano  Bruno — Retractation  imposed  on  Galileo  by 
the  Inquisition. 

1.  If  the  Reformation  had  been  the  effect  of  a  single  cause, 
it  would  not  have  succeeded,  even  partially.  Its  comparative 
success  was  due  to  the  variety  of  its  origins — religious,  political, 
and  social. 

2,  The  religious  cause  was  the  corruption  of  Catholicism, 
which  appeared  to  Luther  on  his  visit  to  Rome  in  1511  to  be  a 
caricature  of  Christianity.  Paganised  by  her  rites  and  by  the 
traffic  in  indulgences,  the  Church  had  also  lost  her  salutary 
contact  with  Scripture.  The  Reformation  wished  to  lead  her 
back  to  the  Bible,  and  succeeded  with  its  own  adherents  at  least. 

3.  One  political  cause  was  impatience  of  the  spiritual  domi- 
nation of  Rome,  and  of  her  interference  in  temporal  affairs ; 
another  was  the  necessity  of  resistance  to  the  Emperors,  who 
called  themselves  Roman  Emperors  and  were  making  long 
strides  towards    despotic  power.^     The  definitive  successes  of 

*  Voltaire. 
108 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIA     109 

the  Reformation  were  won  in  those  countries  into  which  the 
influence  of  Rome,  from  the  first  to  the  fourth  centuries, 
had  not  penetrated  very  deeply.  In  this  connection,  the 
Reformation  was  only  a  continuation  of  the  movement  which 
had  withdrawn  the  ancient  provinces  of  the  Eastern  Empire  from 
obedience  to  Rome ;  it  was,  in  short,  a  reaction  of  Germanism 
against  Romanism. 

4.  The  social  and  economical  causes  were  numerous.  Both 
prince  and  peasant  coveted  the  riches  of  the  Church.  The 
Knights  with  nothing — Conti  di  Allemagna  poveri,  as  the  legate 
wrote  to  the  Pope — were  jealous  of  the  wealthy  abbots.  The 
people  resented  being  squeezed  by  monks  and  priests.  The 
secular  clergy  rebelled  against  the  exactions  of  the  Roman  Curia 
and  the  competition  of  the  monastic  orders.  These  abuses  were 
not  new,  but  the  invention  of  printing  (1447),  by  spreading  the 
taste  for  reading,  had  stimulated  thought  and  enabled  one  man 
to  speak  for  many. 

5.  The  transition  from  despotism  to  liberty  must  be  slow. 
Wherever  it  was  successful,  the  Reformation  adopted  the  autho- 
ritative principles  of  the  Roman  Church.  Instead  of  individual 
freedom  of  faith  and  thought,  it  produced  a  kind  of  attenuated 
Catholicism.  The  seeds  of  religious  liberty  were  there,  but  it 
was  only  after  two  centuries  that  they  blossomed  and  bore  fruit, 
thanks  to  the  breach  made  by  Luther  in  the  ancient  edifice  of 
Rome.  The  Reformation  miscarried  in  those  quarters  where 
habit  was  stronger  than  the  desire  for  an  even  partial  emanci- 
pation. Face  to  face  with  the  uncompromising  theologians  of 
Wittenberg  and  Geneva,  many  confessed  that  "all  they  had 
was  a  choice  of  fetters,  and  that  it  would  be  better  to  keep 
those  to  which  they  had  been  bora.''  ^  Again,  rulers  such  as 
Charles  V.  and  Francis  I.  were  alarmed  at  the  effect  so  profound 
a  revolution  threatened  to  have  upon  the  principle  of  authority. 
Monarchists  by  trade — as  Joseph  IL  was  to  say  at  a  later  date — 
they  fought  against  a  movement  which  menaced  all  authority 
and  pointed  to  the  triumph  of  the  democratic  idea  as  its 
natural  conclusion.  Even  Luther  himself,  during  the  Peasant's 
Revolt,  took  fright  and  recoiled  before  the  social  consequences 

1  Voltaire. 


no     A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

of  his  own  doctrines.  After  ten  centuries  of  Catholicism, 
Europe  was  unripe  for  hberty,  all  the  more  unripe  because  no 
scientific  criticism  of  the  Scriptures  yet  existed.  Luther's  work 
had  to  be  completed  by  that  of  a  pious  French  Catholic, 
Richard  Simon. 

•  •  •  •  » 

6.  The   final    exciting   cause   of  the    Reformation   was   an 
extravagant    sale    of    indulgences    conceded    to    the    German 
Dominicans,  under  pretext  of  a  war  against  the  Turks,  but  in 
reality  to  provide  funds  for  the  construction  of  St.  Peter's  at 
Rome.     In    the   sixteenth   century   it    was   asserted,    but    not 
proved,    that   the   Augustinians   envied    the   Dominicans    this 
privilege.     An    Augustinian    monk,  Martin    Luther,  a   native 
of  Eisleben,  where  he  was  born  in  1483,  on  the  approach   of 
Tetzel,  the  indulgence  broker,  affixed  to  the  Cathedral  door  at 
Wittenberg   ninety-five  arguments  against  the  abuses  of  such 
a  commerce  (October  31,  1517).     These  flew  over  Germany  like 
a  train  of  gunpowder.     Luther  had  penned  what  thousands  of 
the  faithful  had  been  thinking  in  silence.     A    war   of  words 
began  between  Dominican  and  Augustinian.     Others  struck  in 
and   embittered    it.      Leo.    X.,    impatient    of    this    "  monks* 
quarrel,"   began    by    trying    to    make   terms,    but   ended    by 
launching  his  anathema.     Luther  treated  him  very  roughly  in 
his  Captivity  of  Babylon,  in  which  he  fulminated  against  private 
Masses  and  against  transubstantiation,  "  a  word  not  to  be  found 
in  the  Scriptures."     The  gravest  difference  of  opinion  had  to 
do  with  the  Communion.     "  Luther  retained  one-half  of  the 
mystery  and  rejected  the  other.     He  confesses  that  the  body  of 
Jesus  Christ  is  in  the  consecrated  elements,  but  it  is,  he  says,  as 
fire  is  in  red-hot  iron  :  the  fire  and  the  iron  subsist  together. 
This  is  what  they  called  impanation,  invination,  consiibstantiation. 
Thus,  while  those  they  called  Papists  ate  God  without  bread, 
the  Lutherans  ate  God  and  bread  ;  soon  afterwards  came  the 
Calvinists,  who  ate  bread  and  did  not  eat  God."  ^ 

7.  In  order  to  make  the  schism  complete,  Luther  burnt 
Leo's  Bull  of  excommunication  on  the  public  place  of  Witten- 
berg (December  1520),  and  hurled  insults  at  the  Holy  Father : 

*  Voltaire. 


FROM   LUTHER  TO   THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIA     111 

"  Little  Pope/'  he  wrote,  "  little  Popelet,  you  are  an  ass,  a 
little  ass."  German  grossness  found  such  an  address  amusing. 
"  Luther,  rough  and  uncouth,  triumphed  in  his  own  country 
over  all  the  urbanity  of  Rome."  ^ 

8.  "  He  demanded  the  abolition  of  monastic  vows,  because 
they  were  not  of  primitive  institution  ;  permission  for  priests  to 
marry,  because  several  of  the  apostles  were  married  men  ;  the 
Communion  in  both  kinds,  because  Jesus  said  Drink  ye  of  it ; 
the  cessation  of  image  worship,  because  Jesus  had  no  image ;  in 
short,  he  was  in  harmony  with  the  Roman  Church  in  nothing 
but  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity,  Baptism,  the  Incarnation  and 
the  Resurrection."  ^ 

Under  the  influence  of  St.  Augustine,  the  patron  of  his 
order,  Luther  also  rejected  free-will,  which  was  afterwards 
admitted  by  his  followers ;  and,  to  the  great  scandal  of  the 
Faculty  of  Paris,  he  denied  that  the  study  of  Aristotle  was  any 
help  to  the  comprehension  of  the  Scriptures.  Reacting  against 
the  Roman  doctrine  of  salvation  by  works,  the  origin  of  the 
abuse  of  indulgences,  he  proclaimed  that  faith  alone  was  effi- 
cacious, and  that  faith  was  the  fruit  of  grace.  This  was  to 
reject  as  superfluous  all  those  ideas  on  which  the  Church  lived, 
all  those  things  by  which  her  wealth  and  power  were  secured. 

9.  Charles  V.,  who  had  been  Emperor  since  February  1519, 
summoned  the  reformer  to  appear  before  the  Diet  at  Worms 
(January  1521).  He  obeyed  the  summons  with  a  safe-conduct 
which  was  respected,  supported  by  popular  sympathy,  and  pro- 
tected by  Frederick  the  Wise  and  the  German  Knights.  Before 
the  Diet,  he  pleaded  his  conscience  and  refused  to  retract. 
Charles  placed  him  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire,  but  the 
sentence  could  not  be  put  in  force.  Frederick  the  Wise, 
Elector  of  Saxony,  a  convert  to  the  new  ideas,  carried  him  oft" 
in  the  night  and  hid  him  in  the  Saxon  fortress  of  the  Wartburg, 
where  he  lived  under  the  name  of  "  Junker  Georg."  It  was  in 
this  Patmos,  as  he  called  it,  that  he  began  his  translation  of  the 
Bible,  an  admirable  version,  which  became  the  Reformer's  most 
efficient  weapon  in  German  lands. 

10.  "The  aged  Frederick  hoped  for  the  extirpation  of  the 

»  Voltaire.  2  /j^-^. 


112     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Roman  Church.  Luther  thought  it  was  time  to  abohsh  private 
Mass.  He  pretended  the  devil  had  appeared  to  him  and 
reproached  him  for  saying  Mass  and  consecrating  the  elements. 
The  devil  had  proved  to  him,  he  said,  that  it  was  idolatry. 
Luther  declared  that  the  devil  was  right  and  must  be  believed. 
The  Mass  was  abolished  in  Wittenberg,  and  soon  afterwards 
throughout  Saxony.  The  images  were  thrown  down,  monks 
and  nuns  left  their  cloisters,  and,  a  few  years  later,  Luther 
married  a  nun  called  Catherine  von  Bora  {I525y  ^  This  is  why 
when  a  priest  quits  the  Roman  Church  in  order  to  marry,  he  is 
said  "  to  go  out  through  Luther's  door." 

11.  After  having  taken  the  devil's  advice  as  to  the  abolition 
of  the  Mass,  Luther  restricted  or  abolished  the  use  of  exorcisms 
intended  to  keep  the  fiend  at  a  distance.  "  It  was  afterwards 
noticed  that  wherever  exorcism  was  abandoned,  the  number  of 
those  possessed  or  bewitched  greatly  diminished.''"'  ^ 

12.  Luther's  activity  was  seconded  by  that  of  a  gentle  and 
amiable  scholar,  Melancthon.  It  was  embarrassed  rather  than 
helped  by  the  fanatical  Carlstadt,  who  declared  the  marriage  ot 
priests  not  only  permissible,  but  obligatory,  and,  in  his  hatred 
of  Catholicism,  handled  the  monks  roughly  and  destroyed  works 
of  art.  In  1 522,  Luther  quitted  his  retreat  in  order  to  combat 
the  violent  adherents  of  Carlstadt  at  Wittenberg  itself.  These 
were  known  as  the  Sacramentarians,  because  they  refused  to 
recognise  more  than  one  sacrament,  that  of  Baptism.  liUther 
denounced  them  as  "  supporters  of  Satan,"  and  drove  them  out 
of  the  town. 

13.  Denmark  and  Sweden,  where  the  archbishops  of  Upsala 
had  wielded  despotic  power,  also  rallied  to  the  Reformation. 
"  Luther  found  himself  the  apostle  of  the  north,  and  enjoyed 
his  glory  in  peace.  As  early  as  1525  the  States  of  Saxony, 
Brunswick  and  Hesse,  and  the  cities  of  Strasburg  and  Frankfort 
embraced  his  doctrine.  .  .  .  This  Anti-Pope  imitated  the  Pope 
by  authorising  Philip  Landgrave  of  Hesse  to  marry  a  second 
wife  while  his  first  was  still  alive.  This  permission  was  accorded 
at  a  little  Synod  gathered  at  Wittenberg.  It  is  true  that 
Gregory  II.,  in  a  decretal  of  726,  had  allowed  that  in  certain 

1  Voltaire.  *  Ibid. 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIA     113 

cases  a  man  might  marry  a  second  wife.  But  neither  times  nor 
circumstances  were  the  same,  .  .  .  What  no  pontiff'  since 
Gregory  had  ventured  to  do,  Luther,  who  attacked  the  excessive 
power  of  the  Popes,  did  without  any  power  at  all.  His  dis- 
pensation was  secret,  but  time  reveals  all  secrets  of  this 
nature."  ^ 

•  •  •  •  • 

1 4.  A  new  burst  of  fanaticism  came  to  trouble  these  "  pacific 
scandals."  A  pair  of  Saxon  enthusiasts,  pretending  to  be  in- 
spired, demanded  that  children  should  be  rebaptised,  on  the 
ground  that  Jesus  was  baptised  after  he  was  grown  up.  They 
founded  the  violent  sect  of  the  Anabaptists,  who  preached  a 
sort  of  holy  war  against  both  Romans  and  Lutherans.  This 
sect  attracted  the  peasantry,  which  then  suffered  from  the  most 
outrageous  oppression  that  ever  existed,  and  stirred  up  a 
Jacquerie.  "  They  made  the  most  of  the  dangerous  truth  that 
all  men  are  born  equal,  and  that  if  the  Popes  had  treated 
princes  as  their  subjects,  peasants  had  been  treated  like  cattle 
by  their  lords.  .  .  .  They  claimed  the  rights  of  humanity ;  but 
they  sustained  their  claim  like  wild  beasts."  ^ 

15.  The  peasants  rose  from  Saxony  to  Lorraine  (1525),  and, 
after  committing  horrible  excesses,  were  exterminated  by  the 
regular  troops.  The  number  of  victims  has  been  put  at 
150,000.  They  got  no  sympathy  from  Luther.  Alarmed  at 
this  menace  to  social  order,  the  doctrinaire  turned  his  back 
on  the  fanatics  created  by  his  own  teaching. 

When  the  second  Diet  of  Spires  (1529)  attempted  a  Catholic 
reaction,  fourteen  cities  and  several  princes  protested,  from 
which  action  the  enemies  of  Rome  took  their  name  of  Pro- 
testants. At  Augsburg,  the  Lutherans  presented  a  confession 
of  faith,  to  which  a  third  of  Germany  subscribed.  The  princes 
of  this  party  combined  against  the  Emperor,  Charles  V.,  as  well 
as  against  Rome  (1530). 

16.  The  Anabaptists,  however,  seized  Munster  and  drove 
out  the  bishop  (1536).     At  first  they  wanted  to  re-establish  the 

^  Voltaire.     See  also,  for  the  decretal  of  Gregory  II.,  Bossuet,    CEuives, 
ed.  Gaume,  vol.  vii.  p.  540. 
■■^  Voltaire. 
I 


114     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Jewish  theocracy,  and  be  governed  by  God  alone.  But  a  tailor, 
named  John  of  Lej^den,  declared  that  God  had  appeared  to  him 
and  appointed  him  king.  His  assertion  was  believed.  John, 
monarch  and  prophet,  polygamous  in  the  fashion  of  the  Kings 
of  Israel,  was  crowned  with  pomp  and  sent  his  apostles  into 
Germany.  He  was  afterwards  taken  with  arms  in  his  hands, 
and  tortured,  by  the  Bishop  of  Munster's  orders,  with  red-hot 
pincers.  All  the  Anabaptists  caught  in  Westphalia  and  the 
Low  Countries  were  drowned,  strangled,  or  burnt.  The  sect 
survived,  however,  but  in  a  quiescent  state,  and  amalgamated 
with  the  Unitarians,  that  is  with  those  "  who  recognise  only 
one  God,  and,  while  venerating  Christ,  live  without  much 
dogma  and  with  no  disputations.  .  .  .  The  Anabaptists  began 
with  barbarism,  but  have  ended  with  mildness  and  good  sense."  ^ 

17.  The  embarrassments  of  Charles  V,,  who  was  seriously 
threatened  by  the  Turks,  had  prevented  him  from  acting  with 
energy  against  the  Reformation.  After  the  Diet  of  Augsburg 
(1530)  the  Lutherans  came  to  an  understanding  with  each  other 
at  Smalkalde  (1532),  and  Charles  concluded  an  agreement  with 
them  which  held  good  for  twelve  years  (1534). 

18.  Luther  died  in  1546.  The  Emperor,  at  peace  with 
France  and  Turkey,  then  summoned  the  Protestants  to  dissolve 
their  league,  and,  on  their  refusal,  crushed  them  at  the  battle 
of  Miihlberg  (1547).  But  this  victory  did  not  end  the  war. 
At  last,  in  1552,  religious  liberty  was  conceded  to  the  Pro- 
testants by  the  treaty  of  Passau.  Not  long  afterwards  Charles, 
discouraged  as  Diocletian  had  been  before  him,  abdicated  and 
retired  to  the  monastery  of  Yuste,  leaving  the  Empire  to  his 
brother  Ferdinand  and  Spain  to  his  son  Philip  II. 

.  .  •  • 

19.  Switzerland  had  taken  fire  at  the  same  time  as  Germany. 
"  Zwingli,  parish  priest  of  Zurich,  had  gone  even  further  than 
Luther  :  he  refused  to  admit  that  the  Deity  entered  into  the 
bread  and  wine."  ^  The  senate  of  Zurich  agreed  with  him, 
Berne  followed  Zurich  (1528),  and  soon  afterwards  fficolampa- 
dius  brought  about  the  triumph  of  the  Reformation  at  Basle. 
But  Lucerne  and  four  other  cantons  remained  faithful  to  Rome. 

1  Voltaire.  ^  n>l<l. 


FROM   LUTHER  TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     115 

They  declared  war,  and  Zwingli  was  defeated  and  killed  at 
Keppel  (1531).  The  Catholics  quartered  his  body  and  burnt  it. 
"  Zwingli's  religion  was  called  Calvinism.  Calvin  gave  it  his 
name,  just  as  Amerigo  Vespucci  gave  his  to  the  continent 
discovered  by  Columbus," ^ 

20.  The  magistrates  of  Geneva,  following  the  example  set 
by  Zurich  and  Berne,  undertook  a  patient  examination  of  the 
conflicting  doctrines.  They  ended  by  proscribing  popery,  and 
the  bishop  had  to  fly.  The  Genevese,  in  their  alliance  with 
Friburg  and  Berne  against  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  called  themselves 
Eidgenossen  (allied  by  oath),  whence,  probably,  the  word 
Huguenots.  Their  reformation  was  characterised  by  a  moral 
severity  amounting  to  austerity.  It  found  a  sort  of  Pope  in 
Calvin  (born  at  Noyon  in  1509),  a  man  of  irreproachable 
morals  and  as  hard  as  Luther  was  violent.  He  was,  moreover, 
a  good  writer,  as  his  Institution  chrtiienne  proves,  and  a  man  of 
power  in  the  bitterness  of  his  convictions.  Games  and  shows 
were  forbidden.  For  more  than  a  hundred  years  no  musical 
instrument  was  allowed  in  Geneva.  The  practice  of  public 
confession  was  restored  to  favour.  Calvin  established  synods, 
consistories,  and  deacons ;  he  even  instituted  a  consistorial 
jurisdiction  with  the  right  of  excommunication.  The  Re- 
formation had  good  reason,  no  doubt,  for  shutting  up  the 
convents ;  but  Calvin  tended  to  re-establish  them  in  a  lay 
form,  and  even  to  transform  a  whole  canton  into  a  convent ! 

21.  A  Spanish  doctor,  Miguel  Servetus,  who  had  a  premoni- 
tion of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  even  before  Harvey,  and  had 
distinguished  himself  by  his  courage  during  an  epidemic  at 
Vienne  (Dauphine),  addressed  a  letter  to  Calvin  on  the  Trinity. 
They  held  different  opinions  on  the  question.  Beginning  with 
discussion,  they  ended  by  invective.  A  theological  work  which 
Servetus  had  printed  secretly  appeared  anonymously,  but  was 
denounced  to  the  Inquisition  at  Lyons  by  a  friend  of  Calvin's. 
To  reinforce  his  denunciation,  this  man  followed  it  up  by  a 
number  of  letters  written  by  Servetus,  which  Calvin  gave  him 
for  this  base  purpose,  "  What  a  part  for  an  apostle  to  play ! 
Servetus,  who  well  knew  that  in  France  they  sent  all  innovators 

^  Voltaire. 


116     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

to  the  stake,  took  flight  while  his  cause  was  pending.  Unhappily 
he  passed  through  Geneva,  where  Calvin  denounced  him."  ^ 
And  yet  Calvin  was  not  the  monster  of  intolerance  he  has  been 
called.  Shortly  before  the  prosecution  of  Servetus,  he  wrote  : 
"  In  a  case  where  a  man  is  simply  heterodox,  we  do  not  consider 
that  a  sufficient  reason  for  rejecting  him  ;  we  must  tolerate 
him  and  not  drive  him  from  the  Church  or  expose  him  to 
censure  as  a  heretic."  Servetus  was  tried  by  the  Council  of 
Geneva,  an  elected  body,  quite  independent  of  Calvin,  and, 
indeed,  hostile  to  his  ideas  :  the  indictment  was  drawn  up  by  a 
member  of  the  Anti-Calvinist  party.  On  August  26,  1553, 
Calvin  wrote  to  his  friend  Farel,  who  had  endeavoured  to  get 
Servetus  to  retract :  "  I  hope  he  will  be  condemned,  but  I 
desire  that  he  should  be  spared  the  atrocities  of  the  penalty." 
And  on  October  26  :  "  To-morrow  he  will  be  executed  :  we  did 
our  best  to  change  the  manner  of  his  death,  but  in  vain.""  The 
Council  had,  in  fact,  decided  the  day  before  that  he  should  be 
burnt  alive  at  Champel.  He  bore  his  punishment  like  a  stoic. 
On  November  1,  1903,  the  Calvinists  of  Geneva  inaugurated  a 
monument  to  his  memory.  The  crime  of  his  burning  must  be 
judged  like  those  of  the  Terror.  It  was  a  fruit  of  the  education 
in  intolerance  given  to  Europe  by  the  Roman  Church. 

22.  Voltaire  remarks  that  certain  letters  of  Luther  breathe 
a  spirit  no  more  pacific  than  those  of  Calvin,  to  which  the 
Protestants  answer  "  that  they  believe  it  their  duty  to  follow 
the  doctrines  of  the  primitive  Church,  not  to  canonise  the 
passions  of  either  Luther  or  Calvin."  To  which  Voltaire : 
"  A  wise  reason  !  The  spirit  of  philosophy  has  at  last  blunted 
the  sword.  But  was  it  necessary  to  pass  through  two  centuries 
of  lunacy  to  arrive  at  these  peaceful  years  ? "  When  Voltaire 
wrote,  the  days  of  a  new  frenzy  were  not  very  far  off. 

.  .  .  •  • 

23.  The  elements  of  the  Reformation  had  existed  in  England 
since  the  days  of  Wyclif ;  it  only  wanted  the  caprice  of  a  prince 
to  bring  them  to  maturity. 

24.  "  It  is  well  known  that  England  severed  her  connection 
with  the  Pope  because  Henry  VIII.  fell  in  love.     What  neither 

^  Voltaire. 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     117 

Peter's  Pence,  nor  the  sale  of  indulgences,   nor  five  hundred 
years  of  extortions,  always  resisted  by  parliament  and  people, 
could  effect,  was  effected,  or,  at  least,  determined,  by  a  passing 
love  affair."  ^     Henry  VHL  wished   to  exchange  Catherine  of 
Aragon  for  Anne  Boleyn,  and  Clement  VH.  refused  to  annul 
his  marriage  with  Charles  V.'s  aunt.     Henry  accordingly  had 
it  annulled  by  Cranmer,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.     The  Pope 
excommunicated  him,  so  he  proclaimed  himself  supreme  head  of 
the  Church  and  his  parliament  abolished  the  papal  authorit3\ 
Being  in  want  of  money,  the  king  confiscated  the  property  of 
the  religious  bodies,  and  displayed  the  most  impudent  cynicism 
in  stripping  the  rich  abbeys  of  their  wealth.     A  Pope  himself, 
in  his  own  way  and  to  his  own  advantage,  he  took  good  care 
not  to  declare  himself  a  Lutheran.     "  The  invocation  of  saints 
was  only  restricted,  not  abolished.     He  caused  the  Bible  to  be 
read  in  English,  but  wished  to  go  no  further.     It  was  a  capital 
offence  to  believe  in  the  Pope;  and  also  to  be  a  Protestant." 
The  Lord  Chancellor,  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  Fisher,  Bishop  of 
Rochester,  were  condemned  to  death  by  Parliament  for  refusing 
to  acknowledge  the  king  as  head  of  the  Church.     Henry,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  completely  unaffected 
by  moral  scruples,  but  he  was  a  king.    After  his  death  England 
had  Lutherans,  Zwinglians,  and  even  Anabaptists,  "  the  fathers 
of  those   peace-loving   Quakers    whose   religion    was    so   often 
laughed  at  while  their  morals  enforced  respect.  .  .  .  Believing 
themselves  to  be  Christians  and  in  nowise  priding  themselves  on 
their  philosophy,  they  were  in  reality  deists,  for  in  Christ  they 
only  recognised  a  man  to  whom  God  had  given  purer  lights 
than  to  his  contemporaries.    The  people  called  them  Anabaptists, 
because  they  did  not  acknowledge  the  validity  of  baptism  for 
infants,  requiring  adults  to  be   baptised  even  when  they  had 
already  undergone  the  rite."^ 

25.  Mary  Tudor,  the  daughter  of  Henry  VHL  and  wife  of 
Philip  H.,  was  passionately  Catholic.  While  she  was  on  the 
throne,  over  two  hundred  Protestants  were  burnt,  including 
Archbishop  Cranmer;  her  successor,  Elizabeth  (1558-1603),  was 
a  Protestant.  "  Parliament  was  Protestant ;  the  whole  nation 
^  Voltaire.  *  Ibid. 


118     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

became  Protestant  and  is  so  still.  Its  religion  was  now  fixed 
and  its  liturgy  established.  The  Roman  form  of  hierarchy, 
with  a  greatly  diminished  ceremonial,  although  with  more  than 
the  Lutherans  allowed  ;  confession,  permitted  but  not  ordained  ; 
the  belief  that  God  is  in  the  Eucharist  without  transubstantia- 
tion  :  broadly  speaking,  these  are  the  elements  of  the  Anglican 
religion."!  During  the  short  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  the  son  of 
Henry  VIII.  (1547-1553),  a  Confession  of  Faith  in  forty-two 
articles  and  an  official  prayer-book  had  been  promulgated. 
Elizabeth  retained  thirty-nine  of  the  forty-two  articles  in  her 
Art  of  Unlformitf/,  which  also  imposed  the  Creed  (1562). 
The  Edwardian  jirayer-book,  proscribed  under  Mary,  was  re- 
established, with  a  few  alterations,  and  became  the  foundation 
of  Anglican  worship. 

26.  Elizabeth,  though  very  hostile  to  Popery,  was  no  more 
of  a  fanatic  than  her  father.  She  hanged  two  Jesuits  and 
beheaded  Mary  of  Scotland  (1587),  but  these  cruelties  were 
inspired  by  political  considerations,  and  the  proceedings  were 
always  legal.  By  excommunicating  Elizabeth  during  Maiy's 
captivity.  Pope  Pius  V.  only  made  her  more  implacable.  Scot- 
land was  agitated  by  the  wars  between  Catholics  and  Protestants. 
A  preacher,  John  Knox,  who  had  at  one  time  been  a  refugee  with 
Calvin  (1554),  propagated  Calvinism  in  Scotland.  He  led  it 
to  victory  after  the  flight  of  Mary,  for  whose  head  he  clamoured 
as  early  as  1570.  Ireland  remained  faithful  to  Rome  in  spite 
of  Elizabeth,  who  showed  her  despotic  temper  by  forcing  an 
Anglican  priesthood  on  the  Irish  parishes.  That  unhappy 
island  was  still  more  harshly  treated  in  the  sequel,  but  remained 
faithful  to  her  Churcli ;  she  would  not,  and  will  not  even  now, 
accept  that  of  her  conquerors. 

•  •  •  •  • 

27.  In  1516,  Francis  I.  and  Leo  X.  had  concluded  a  Concordat 
which  gave  the  king  the  nominations  to  benefices  and  the  Pope 
their  first  year's  revenue.  To  the  University  and  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Paris  these  terms  seemed  too  favourable  to  Rome, 
The  king's  sister.  Marguerite  d'Alen^-on,  afterwards  Queen  of 
Navarre,  favoured  the  propaganda  of  Jacques  Lefevre  of  Etaples 

*  Voltaire. 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIA     119 

(born  in  1435),  in  support  of  the  Augustinian  doctrines,  which 
resembled  those  of  Luther.    Among  the  disciples  of  Lefevre  was 
Guillaume  Farel,  afterwards  a  friend  of  Calvin,  who  preached 
the  Reformation  at  Neuchatel  and  invited   Calvin  to  Geneva. 
Calvin  himself  could  not  stay  in  France ;  his  Instihition  chre- 
tienne  was  first  published  at  Basle.     In  spite  of  Marguerite's 
influence,   the   reformers   were  horribly  persecuted  in   France. 
Jean  le  Clerc  was  torn  to  pieces  with  pincers  for  having  spoken 
against    images  and    relics :    twenty   reformers    were    burnt   at 
the  stake.     To  prevent  them  from  addressing  the  people,  the 
Parliament  of  Paris  ordered  their  tongues  to  be  cut  out  before 
the  execution.     At  the  same  time  Francis  I.  was  allying  himself 
with  the  German  Protestants  and  even  with  the  Turks  against 
Charles  V.     Profoundly  indifferent  in  religious  matters,  he  let 
his  parliaments  and  his  monks  do  as  they  liked.     The  close  of 
his  reign  was  disgraced  by  an  infamous  crime.     The  Parliament 
of   Provence    condemned   to  the  stake  nineteen    Waldenses  of 
Merindol,  who  had  adopted    the  reformed  doctrines.     Francis 
offered  to  pardon  them  on  condition  that  they  recanted.     On 
their  refusal  the  First  President  of  the  Parliament,  one  d'Oppede, 
called  in  troops,  who  burnt  and  massacred  them  all.     "  A  com- 
pany of  sixty  men  and  thirty  women  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
walled  village  of  Cabrieres.     They  surrendered  on  a  promise  of 
their  lives  ;  no  sooner  was  the  surrender  complete  than  they  were 
massacred.     A  few  women  escaped  to  a  neighbouring  church  ; 
they  were  dragged  out  by  d'Oppede's  orders,  shut  up  in  a  barn, 
and  there  burnt.     Twenty-two  small  townships  were  burnt  to 
the  ground.     Francis    I.  was   horrified.     The  warrant  he  had 
signed  was  for  the  execution  of  nineteen  heretics  only.    D'Oppede 
and  Guerin,  the  Avocat  General.,  had  caused   the  massacre  of 
thousands."  i     On  his  death-bed  the  king  requested  his  son  to 
punish    this  barbarity.     The  Parliament  of   Paris   condemned 
Guerin  to  death,  but  acquitted  d'Oppede,  the  more  criminal  of 
the  pair. 

28.  "  The  progress  of  Calvinism  was  not  stemmed  by  these 
executions.  On  one  side  the  faggots  were  ablaze,  on  the  other 
the  psalms  of  Clement  Marot  were  sung  laughingly,  true  to  that 

^  Voltaire. 


120     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

genius  of  the  French  nation  which  is  always  Hght  and  some- 
times very  cruel.  Marguerite's  whole  Court  was  thoroughly 
Calvinist ;  that  of  her  brother,  the  king,  more  than  half  so. 
What  the  people  had  begun,  the  nobles  were  carrying  on. 
More  than  one  member  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris  itself  was 
attached  to  the  Reformation."  ^  Henry  II.  arrested  five  coun- 
sellors, among  them  Anne  du  Bourg,  who  was  hanged  and 
burnt  under  Francis  II. 

The  success  of  the  Reformation  among  the  French  nobles 
was  not  solely  due  to  the  Renaissance  aiid  the  intellectual 
illumination  which  followed  it ;  they  saw  the  German  knights 
growing  rich  on  the  spoils  of  the  abbeys,  and  hoped  for  similar 
irood  fortune.  In  all  the  religious  wars  which  stained  the  second 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  both  sides  were  eager  for  rapine 
and  pillage.  At  that  sinister  epoch  honest  and  kindly  men  like 
the  Chancellor  de  THopital  and  Admiral  de  Coligny  were  rare 
and  admirable  exceptions. 

•  •  •  •  • 

29.  The  so-called  Counter-Reformation  was  the  movement 
towards  reform  within  the  Roman  Church  brought  about  by  the 
threat  of  a  Protestant  revolution.  It  was,  in  a  sense,  a  Pro- 
testant infiltration  into  Romanism,  not,  of  course,  in  rites  and 
dogmas,  but  in  the  discipline  of  the  clergy.  Not  only  did  the 
Popes  become,  for  the  most  part,  respectable  men,  whose  only 
weakness  was  the  appointment  to  lucrative  posts  of  their  own 
nephews  {nipoti,  whence  the  term  nepotism) ;  but  priests  and 
monks  were  better  controlled  and  their  duties  more  clearly 
defined.  The  sale  of  indulgences  came  to  an  end ;  and,  in 
confession,  the  use  of  a  little  box  known  as  a  confessional 
was  made  obligatory,  which  minimised  certain  dangerous 
opportunities. 

30.  Profiting  by  its  trials,  the  Church,  without  ceasing  to 
urge  violence  upon  the  "  civil  arm,"  now  sought  to  gain,  or 
regain,  souls  by  softer  methods.  In  this  task  she  was  admirably 
seconded  by  the  Jesuits,  who  gradually  acquired  the  control  of 
education,  and,  through  the  confessional,  of  the  consciences  of 
the  ruling  classes.     Lav  societies,  more  or  less  affiliated  to  the 


^  Voltaire. 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIA     121 

Jesuits,  were  formed  in  many  centres  to  work  "  for  the  greater 
glory  of  God."  Recent  publications  have  made  us  well  acquainted 
with  one  of  these,  which  wielded  a  great  and  mysterious  influ- 
ence in  France  between  1627  and  1666.  This  was  the  Brother- 
hood of  the  Holy  Sacrament  {Confrdrie  du  Saint  Sacrement), 
which  was  known  as  the  Cabale  des  Dcvots}  The  secrecy  with 
which  this  Brotherhood  carried  on  its  works  of  charity  is  to  be 
explained  by  the  fundamental  object  of  its  activity  :  an  elaborate 
system  of  espionage,  directed  against  the  reputation  and  property 
of  all  heretics  and  unbelievers.  To  deprive  them  of  their 
functions  or  their  customers,  and  reduce  them  to  poverty,  became 
the  ambition  of  opponents  who  were  no  longer  permitted  to 
burn  them. 

31.  While  Protestantism,  inspired  by  Saint  Paul  and  Saint 
Augustine,  narrowed  the  way  of  salvation  and  frightened  the 
sinner  from  his  sin,  Jesuitical  Catholicism  adopted  a  more 
skilful  policy :  it  made  religion  gentle  and  almost  indulgent  to 
human  frailty.  The  Jesuits  were  not  indeed  the  inventors  of 
casuistry,  which  was  familiar  to  classic  Greece,  and  of  which 
many  examples  are  to  be  found  in  Cicero's  De  Officns ;  but 
they  developed  the  useful  science  which  takes  note  of  the  shades 
and  degrees  of  acts  no  less  than  of  thoughts,  and  judges  them 
chiefly  by  their  motives.  The  Jesuits  never  taught  the  crude 
doctrine  that  the  end  justifies  the  means,  but  their  main  pre- 
occupation was,  very  rightly,  with  intentions.  Those  Jesuits 
whom  the  Jansenists  were  never  w^eary  of  vilifying,  writers  on 
moral  theology  like  Sanchez  and  Suarez,  were,  in  their  way, 
profound  psychologists,  liberal  and  liberating  moralists,  to 
whom  humanity  would  have  owed  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude 
had  they  not  used  liberty  itself  in  a  domineering  spirit,  and 
lightened  the  chains  of  the  human  race  in  order  to  subdue  it 
the  better. 

32.  The  new  course  of  the  Church  was  fixed  by  the  Council 
of  Trent,  which  lasted  for  seventeen  years  (1546-1563),  with 
considerable    intervals.      In    its    early   days,    the    Primate   of 

1  It  was  perhaps  in  opposition  to  this  cabal,  fallen  into  discredit  with  the 
powers,  that  Molitre  wrote  Tartafe,  which  was  represented  at  Versailles  in 
1664,  by  command  of  Louis  XIV. 


122     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Portugal  facetiously  announced  that  "these  most  illustrious 
cardinals  will  have  to  be  most  illustriously  reformed."  The 
necessity  of  a  firm  discipline  was  universally  acknowledged,  but 
it  was  by  no  means  the  only  necessity.  The  Council  of  Trent 
dealt  a  good  deal  in  scholastic  theology  ;  it  codified  Catholicism  ; 
it  defined  original  sin  ;  it  decreed  the  perpetuity  of  the  marriage 
tie  ;  it  pronounced  anathema  against  those  who  rejected  the 
invocation  of  saints  or  the  adoration  of  relics,  who  denied  the 
existence  of  Purgatory  or  the  validity  of  indulgences.  "The 
theologians,  who  had  no  votes,  explained  the  dogmas;  the 
prelates  voted  under  the  directions  of  the  papal  legates,  who 
quieted  the  grumblers,  softened  the  acrimonious,  parried  every- 
thing that  might  offend  the  Court  of  Rome,  and  were  from 
first  to  last  the  masters."  ^ 

33.  Thanks  to  the  Counter-Reformation  and  to  the  Jesuits, 
the  Church  regained  part  of  the  ground  she  had  lost  in  Europe, 
Southern  Germany,  France,  some  of  the  Swiss  Cantons,  Savoy, 
and  Poland.  In  Italy,  Protestantism  was  almost  completely 
crushed  by  the  Inquisition  established  in  1542.  It  was  the 
same  in  Spain.  The  propaganda  of  the  Polish  Jesuits  spread 
into  Western  Russia  and  into  Lithuania.  Catholicism  conquered 
America,  several  of  the  cities  of  India,  and  won  a  footino;  in 
Japan  and  China.  This  development  in  the  Far  East  was 
chiefly  the  work  of  the  zealous  Jesuit  Francois  Xavier  (1542- 
1552).  But  while  the  Jesuits  kept  their  place  in  Pekin,  thanks 
chiefly  to  concessions  to  the  native  faith  which  brought  suspicion 
upon  their  own,  they  were  driven  out  of  Japan  and  their  religion 
proscribed  (1637)  as  soon  as  the  intelligent  population  of  its 
islands  awoke  to  the  fact  that  their  liberty  was  at  stake, 

34.  In  the  war  against  the  Reformation  the  Jesuits  played 
a  part  no  less  considerable  than  that  of  the  Dominicans  in 
the  less  dangerous  struggle  with  the  Albigenses.  Taking  their 
share  in  every  political  and  religious  conflict,  they  have,  down 
to  our  own  days,  excited  violent  hatred  and  equally  fervent 
admiration.  History,  moreover,  has  to  show  some  reserve  in 
discussing  them,  for  no  one  outside  the  Order  knows  exactly 

*  Voltaire, 


FROM   LUTHER  TO   THE   ENCYCLOPAEDIA     123 

where  its  archives  are  kept,  and  no   independent    layman  has 
ever  been  allowed  to  explore  them. 

35.  The  founder  of  this  illustrious  company  was  Ignatius 
Loyola,  a  noble  from  Guipuscoa  (1491-1556).  Wounded  at 
the  siege  of  Pampeluna,  he  was  attracted  to  mysticism  by  a 
perusal  of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints.  After  a  pilgrimage  to 
Jerusalem,  he  came,  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  to  study  at 
Salamanca  and  at  Paris,  In  Paris,  on  Montmartre,  he  founded 
an  association  which  at  first  devoted  itself  to  teaching.  In 
1540,  Paul  III.  promulgated  the  Bull  by  which  the  Order  of 
Jesuits  was  instituted.  The  fourth  vow  it  imposed  was  that 
of  absolute  obedience  to  the  Pope.  Loyola  finished  in  1548 
The  Book  of  the  Spiritual  Exercises,  a  series  of  pious  medita- 
tions and  rules  of  conduct,  "one  of  the  world-moving  books." 
It  puts  forth  a  programme  for  the  society,  in  which  God  is 
represented  as  a  general  and  the  Jesuits  as  his  officers.  As 
an  old  soldier,  he  understood  how  to  bring  his  order  under  that 
quasi-military  discipline  which  has  counted  for  so  much  in  its 
success.  In  this  respect,  perhaps,  it  was  in  some  measure 
inspired  by  those  brotherhoods  of  Islam,  at  once  religious  and 
military,  which  had  already  been  imitated  in  the  Middle  Ages 
by  the  Templars  and  the  Hospitallers. 

36.  Loyola  found  very  efficient  lieutenants  in  Lainez  and 
Salmeron,  and  since  his  time  the  Society  has  never  lacked  men 
of  talent.  "  It  has  controlled  several  European  Courts  and  won 
a  great  name  for  itself  by  the  education  of  youth  [Voltaire  was 
one  of  its  pupils] ;  it  reformed  science  in  China,  christianised 
Japan— for  a  time ! — and  gave  laws  to  the  people  of  Paraguay. 
At  the  date  of  its  expulsion  from  Portugal,  it  numbered  about 
18,000  individuals,  all  subject  to  a  permanent  and  absolute 
ruler  in  their  General,  and  bound  to  each  other  by  this  obedience 
sworn  to  a  single  person.  .  .  .  The  Order  had  great  difficulty 
in  establishing  itself  in  France.  It  was  born  and  reared  under 
the  House  of  Austria,  France's  sometime  enemy,  and  was  pro- 
tected by  her.  In  the  days  of  the  League,  the  Jesuits  were  the 
pensioners  of  Philip  II.  The  other  religious  bodies,  who  all 
belonged  to  this  faction  except  the  Benedictines  and  the 
Carthusians,   fanned   the   flame   only    in    France ;    the   Jesuits 


124     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

did    so    from    Rome,    Madrid    and    Brussels,   setting   fire   to 
Paris."! 


37.  Whereas  the  forces  of  the  Roman  Church  stood  centralised 
for  the  struggle,  the  reformed  Churches  Avere  divided.  Closely 
allied  to  the  civil  power,  they  were  national  and  not  universal. 
If  Rome  tended  to  dominate  the  secular  authorities,  her  rivals 
too  often  and  too  willingly  became  their  instruments.  Another 
characteristic  these  latter  have  in  common  is  the  large  share  in 
ecclesiastical  matters  given  to  the  laity,  which  is  not  differen- 
tiated from  the  clergy  by  marriage.  In  England  and  in  the 
Scandinavian  countries  a  hierarchy  analogous  to  that  of  Rome 
was  preserved.  Those  countries  are  episcopalian.  The  Calvinists 
of  Switzerland,  France,  Holland  and  Scotland  preferred  the 
Synodal  or  Presbyterian  system,  so  called  because  the  synods 
or  councils  of  elders  {Pi-eshyteroi  in  Greek)  had  the  direction 
of  spiritual  affairs,  as  in  the  primitive  Church.  The  Lutherans, 
in  default  of  bishops,  had  superintendents.  Finally,  the  sects 
called  Independents  and  CongregationaUsts  had  no  hierarchy 
at  all,  but  governed  themselves.  These  flourished  chiefly  in 
England.  As  for  their  methods  of  worship,  the  Reformed 
Churches  agreed  in  banishing  images,  relics,  and  the  invocation 
of  saints  ;  but  in  detail  they  varied,  according  to  the  severity  of 
their  principles.  The  Anglican  Church  remained  very  close  to 
Roman  Catholicism,  and,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  part  of  it, 
known  as  the  High  Church,  approached  it  more  closely  still. 
The  Lutheran  Church  gave  an  important  place  to  music  and 
singing ;  the  Calvinist  Churches  no  more  tolerated  instrumental 
music  than  images,  and  permitted  nothing  but  psalms  and 
hymns.  The  national  languages  everywhere  ousted  Latin  in 
the  liturgies,  and  preaching  encroached  upon  ritual. 

•  •  •  •  • 

38.  The  spirit  of  the  Inquisition  was  incarnate  in  Philip  II. 
He  swore  before  a  crucifix  to  exterminate  the  scanty  Protestants 
of  Spain  and  had  them  burnt  under  his  palace  windows.  Hear- 
ing that  heretics  existed  in  a  certain  valley  of  Piedmont,  he 
wrote  to  the  Governor  of  Milan  :  Send  them  all  to  the  gallows ! 

^  Voltaire. 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     125 

They  told  him  of  reformers  in  Calabria :  he  directed  that  they 
should  be  put  to  the  sword,  reserving  thirty  for  the  gallows  and 
thirty  for  the  stake.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  such  a 
fanatic  should  have  employed  a  hangman  like  Alva  in  the 
subjection  of  the  Protestant  Netherlands,  where  he  had 
established  the  Inquisition  in  1565. 

39.  "  William  the  Silent  had  neither  the  men  nor  the  money 
to  resist  such  a  monarch  as  Philip  II.  The  persecutions  gave 
him  both.  The  new  tribunal  set  up  in  Brussels  threw  the 
people  into  despair.  Counts  Egmont  and  Horn,  with  eighteen 
others  of  gentle  birth,  were  beheaded  and  their  blood  was 
the  first  cement  for  the  Republic  of  the  United  Netherlands."  ^ 
When  the  Duke  of  Alva  was  at  last  recalled,  he  boasted  of 
having  put  eighteen  thousand  people  to  death.  A  vain  boast ; 
for  the  Union  of  Utrecht  brought  about  the  birth  of  the  political 
liberties  of  Holland  in  the  seven  united  provinces  (1579).  But 
religious  liberty  only  comes  after  a  long  education,  and  the 
Dutch  Reformation  was  far  from  being  always  liberal.  In  its 
turn,  it  was  guilty  of  murdering  men  for  their  opinions. 

4)0.  Calvin  had  uncompromisingly  upheld  the  Augustinian 
theory  of  predestination,  which  makes  God  either  the  benefactor 
or  the  capricious  foe  of  individuals.  This  doctrine,  a  logical 
deduction  from  premises  which  are  an  outrage  upon  reason, 
was  contested  by  Harmensen,  called  Arminius,  a  pastor  of 
Leyden  (1603),  against  Gomar,  a  fanatical  Calvinist.  As 
the  Arminians  were  Liberals  in  politics,  they  were  opposed 
by  the  Stadtholder,  Maurice  of  Nassau.  At  the  Synod  of 
Dort  (1618),  they  were  insulted,  maltreated,  and  condemned. 
One  of  their  number,  the  old  patriot  Barnevelt,  was  beheaded. 
Arminian  pastors  and  professors  were  stripped  of  their  offices. 
Many  took  refuge  in  Schleswig,  whence  they  returned  in  1625, 
the  death  of  Maurice  having  caused  a  certain  reaction  in  favour 
of  toleration.  We  must  add,  for  the  credit  of  Holland,  that 
the  Dutch  neither  proscribed  nor  persecuted  the  Roman  Catholic 
worship. 

41.  The  Catholics  did  not  abandon  the  idea  of  regaining 
England,    even    after    the    dispersal    of    Philip's    "  Invincible 

^  Voltaire. 


126     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Armada."  Elizabeth's  successor,  James  I.,  the  son  of  Mary 
Stuart,  inclined  towards  Catholicism,  but  demanded  toleration; 
he  considered  persecution  "  as  one  of  the  infallible  notes  of  a 
false  Church."  But,  after  1604,  he  was  driven  by  the  Protestant 
party  in  that  direction.  For  this  a  further  pretext  was  found 
in  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  a  conspiracy  to  blow  up  the  Houses  of 
Parliament,  the  inception  of  which  was  ascribed  to  the  Jesuits 
(November  5th,  1605).  Their  complicity  has  never  been 
established.  The  Jesuit  Garnet,  executed  for  a  share  in  the 
plot,  or  for  having  had  some  knowledge  of  it,  was  probably 
innocent.  Charles  I.,  son  of  James  I.,  married  Henrietta  Maria, 
the  Catholic  daughter  of  Henri  Quatre.  He  was  reproached 
with  favouring  ritualism,  those  ceremonies  of  the  Anglican 
Church  which  brought  it  nearest  to  Rome.  This  tendency  was 
fostered  by  Laud,  Bishop  of  London,  and  afterwards  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury.  Charles  was  imprudent  enough  to  attempt  the 
imposition  of  the  Anglican  liturgy  on  Presbyterian  Scotland, 
which  revolted.  Passing  through  various  stages  of  a  struggle 
with  his  Parliament,  he  was  finally  arrested,  tried,  and  beheaded 
(1649).  Parliament  was  dominated  by  the  spirit  of  the  Scottish 
Puritans,  an  austere  and  sectarian  form  of  Protestantism. 
Sensible  men  as  they  were,  they  were  drunk  with  the  wine  of 
the  Bible,  and  believed  themselves  prophets  of  Israel  because 
they  could  quote  their  sayings.  One  of  the  most  energetic 
members  of  Parliament,  who  soon  became  its  leader,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  conqueror  of  Charles  I.  at  Marston  Moor  (1644)  and 
Naseby  (1645),  had  passed  from  the  Presbyterians  to  the  Inde- 
pendents, that  is,  to  a  democratic  form  of  religion,  in  which  full 
autonomy  was  left  to  local  communities  (1640).  But  when  he 
became  Lord  Protector  (1653),  he  gave  a  Presbyterian  form  to 
the  English  Church,  modified  by  a  large  toleration,  which  was 
not,  however,  extended  to  the  Catholics. 

Charles  II.,  restored  by  General  Monk  after  the  death  of 
Cromwell,  reverted  to  the  Anglican  forms  and  tried  to  impose 
them  in  his  turn.  The  main  point  was  to  compel  every  ecclesi- 
astic to  receive  ordination  from  a  bishop.  Thousands  preferred 
destitution  to  such  an  appearance  of  concession  to  Catholicism. 
The  truth  was  that  Charles,  a  dissolute  prince  and  pensioner  of 


FROM  LUTHER  TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     127 

France,  sought  to  re-establish  the  ancient  faith.  His  brother 
and  successor,  James  II.,  threw  oft'  the  mask,  and  imprisoned 
seven  Anglican  bishops  who  refused  to  lend  themselves  to  an 
understanding  with  Rome.  The  bishops  were  tried  and  ac- 
quitted. The  king's  unpopularity  went  on  increasing  until  at 
last  his  son-in-law,  William  of  Orange,  Stadtholder  of  the 
Netherlands,  deprived  him  of  his  crown,  with  the  help  and 
consent  of  Parliament  (1689).  Thenceforward  English  policy 
took  N^o  Popery !  for  its  motto  :  a  principle  which  became  all 
the  dearer  to  the  English  people  through  the  attempts  made  by 
Louis  XIV.  to  restore  James  II. 

42.  Ireland  had  revolted  in  1641.  The  Catholics  massacred 
thousands  of  Protestants,  but  were  punished  with  equal  cruelty 
by  Cromwell  (1G50).  A  second  rising  took  place  in  favour  of 
James  II.  (1690) ;  after  the  rebels  had  been  defeated,  the  oppres- 
sion of  Catholic  Ireland  became  atrocious.  And  yet  it  must  be 
confessed  that  England  never  behaved  towards  her  Catholic 
subjects  as  Louis  XIV.  did  towards  the  French  Protestants. 
Their  lives  were  made  insupportable,  but  their  priests  were  not 
condemned  to  death,  nor  were  those  who  wished  to  emigrate 
sent  to  the  galleys. 

A  Swiss  follower  of  Zwingli,  Thomas  Lieber,  called  Erastus 
(+  1583),  claimed  that  the  Church  should  be  subordinate  to 
the  State.  His  doctrine,  by  no  means  a  new  one,  is  known  in 
Great  Britain  as  Ernstianism  ;  it  has  been  that  of  Henry  II., 
Edward  III.,  Heiuy  VIII.,  Elizabeth  and  later  statesmen,  but 
was  opposed,  ever  since  1560,  by  the  Church  of  Scotland. 

43.  At  the  time  w4ien,  under  James  I.,  Presbyterians  and 
Independents  refused  to  accept  the  Anglican  liturgy,  a  certain 
number  of  these  austere  Puritans,  known  as  the  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
embarked  for  North  America  on  a  ship  called  the  Mayflower 
(September  1620).  They  landed  in  IMassachusetts  and  there 
founded  the  colonies  which  also  afforded  asylum  to  the  persecuted 
French  Protestants.  It  is  now  a  kind  of  title  to  noblesse  in  the 
United  States  to  count  one  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  among  one's 
ancestors. 

44.  Reformed  England  has  never  lacked  reformers.  One  of 
these — George  Fox,  the  founder  of  the  Society  of  Friends — was 


128     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

imprisoned  under  Charles  II.  He  taught  that  the  divine  spirit 
acted  directly  upon  individuals,  occasionally  inspiring  them 
with  a  sort  of  convulsive  shaking.  People  took  advantage  of 
this  doctrine  to  call  the  Friends  Quakers',  although  their  worship 
is  remarkably  free  from  fuss  or  affectation.  The  Quakers  are 
honest  folk,  who  know  neither  sacraments  nor  rites,  whose  lives 
are  simple  to  austerity,  who  neither  swear  nor  play,  nor  carry 
arms,  nor  dance,  nor  drink  strong  liquors.  Their  religious  ex- 
altation, inoffensive  enough,  declares  itself  at  their  "  meetings,'"" 
when,  amid  a  profound  silence,  one  of  the  congregation  may 
begin  to  hold  forth  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  most 
intelligent  of  the  Quakers,  William  Penn,  the  son  of  an  admiral, 
was  a  creditor  of  Charles  II.'s  Government,  which  paid  its  debt 
with  a  gift  of  land  in  America.  Penn  betook  himself  thither 
with  a  body  of  Friends  in  1681.  The  flourishing  State  of 
Pennsylvania  preserves  his  name,  and  its  capital,  Philadelphia, 
reveres  his  memory.  The  Friends  have  always  exercised  a 
certain  influence  in  England  and  in  the  United  States,  where 
they  co-operated  with  effect  in  the  movement  for  negro  emanci- 
pation. Quite  recently,  they  have  had  the  honour  of  being  the 
first  to  rebuild  houses  in  the  devastated  regions  of  France 
(1915),  and  they  have  played  a  merciful  part  in  combating  the 
famine  in  Russia  (1922). 

•  •  •  •  • 

45.  One  of  the  first  results  of  the  Catholic  reaction  was  the 
Thirty  Years'  War.  It  ruined  Germany  for  two  hundred  years, 
but  with  the  help  of  Catholic  France  under  Richelieu,  Protestant 
Sweden  under  Gustavus  Adolphus,  and  the  Low  Countries,  the 
Reformed  Princes  of  Germany  were  upheld  against  the  House 
of  Austria.  In  the  end  this  frightful  havoc  and  bloodshed  left 
things  much  as  it  found  them.  Catholics  and  Protestants 
retained  their  position.  France  alone  profited  by  the  long  con- 
flict in  the  weakening  of  the  Empire.  The  Treaty  of  Westphalia 
(1648)  made  her  the  first  Power  in  Europe.  Dreadful  cruelties 
were  enacted  on  both  sides,  but  the  Catholic  leaders  showed 
themselves  even  more  savage  than  their  opponents.  Few  more 
disgusting  acts  of  barbarity  have  ever  been  committed  than  the 
sack  and  burning  of  Magdeburg  by  Tilly.     Not  only  was  the 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     129 

torch  of  war  lighted  by  the  Jesuit  councillors  of  Ferdinand  H., 
but  after  all  its  ravages  the  Pope  refused  to  recognise  the 
peace  of  1648.  In  1631  Urban  VIII.  had  congratulated 
Ferdinand  on  the  destruction  of  Magdeburg,  and  had  expressed 
the  hope  that  other  rebel  cities  would  soon  meet  with  the 
same  fate  ! 

46.  The  Lutherans  of  Germany  had  a  reformer  of  their  own 
in  the  Alsatian,  Philip  Jacob  Spener  (1635-1705).  Distressed 
by  the  external  and  formalistic  character  of  the  religion  he  saw 
about  him,  he  formed  what  he  called  the  Collegia  p'letatis,  from 
which  his  followers  were  called  Pietists.  It  was  in  Berlin  that 
he  wielded  most  influence,  the  upper  middle  classes  receiving  an 
impression  from  his  teaching  which  they  preserved  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  A  Pietist  is  not  a  theologian. 
His  preoccupations  are  with  the  practical  side  of  the  Christian 
life.  Here  he  approaches  the  rationalist  and  the  simple  deist. 
From  these,  however,  he  is  separated  by  a  certain  air  of  superi- 
ority and  by  a  slight  pretension  to  asceticism.  A  religious 
movement  in  its  origin,  Pietism  became  an  attitude,  and  a  pro- 
voking one.  However,  the  tendency  breathed  by  the  writings 
and  preachings  of  Spener  evolved  very  differently  in  various  parts 
of  Germany,  so  that  we  cannot  speaic  of  Pietism  in  general,  but 
only  of  Pietists  in  particular  times  and  places. 

47.  Towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Poland  seemed 
almost  lost  to  the  Roman  Church.  The  nobility  were  either 
Lutherans  or  Calvinists ;  there  were  more  than  2000  reformed 
communities  in  the  country.  Then  a  singular  event  took  place. 
Two  natives  of  Siena,  Laelius  Socinus  (Lelio  Sozzini)  and  his 
nephew  Faustus,  or  P'austo,  taught  in  Switzerland  the  doctrine 
known  as  Unitarianism,  a  kind  of  deism  hostile  to  the  doffma  of 
the  Trinity  and  still  more  to  that  of  salvation  by  faith.  Faustus 
came  to  Poland  and  founded  a  Socinian  Church  there,  which 
Jesuits  and  Reformers  united  to  attack.  The  Socinians  had  to 
take  refuge  in  Transylvania,  and  the  Polish  reformers,  weakened 
by  the  struggle  and  their  loss  in  numbers,  were  soon  reduced  to 
impotence.  The  Roman  Church  profited  by  these  events  to 
regain  all  the  ground  she  had  lost. 


K 


130    A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

48.  In  spite  of  all  the  violence  that  darkened  the  reign 
of  Henri  II.,  violence  in  which  the  populace,  excited  by  the 
monks,  began  to  participate,  the  French  Protestants  were  a 
fairly  powerful  body  when  Francois  II.  mounted  the  throne. 
He  was  a  child  in  poor  health,  dominated  by  the  faction  of 
the  Guises.  The  struggle  then  took  on  a  political  complexion, 
the  Huguenots  recognising  Prince  Louis  de  Conde  for  their 
chief,  the  Catholics  the  Due  de  Guise.  Desiring  to  withdraw 
the  young  king  from  the  influence  of  Francois  de  Guise  and 
his  brother,  the  Cardinal  de  Lorraine,  certain  Protestants 
organised  what  is  known  as  the  Conspiracy  of  Amboise.  This 
failed  and  was  followed  by  numerous  executions.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  Charles  IX. 's  reign,  Catherine  de'  Medici  being  regent, 
the  States-General  demanded  liberty  of  worship  (1561).  As  a 
result  of  this  a  congress  of  theologians  was  held  at  Poissy,  in 
which  the  Reformation  was  defended  by  Theodore  de  Bcze,  a 
pupil  of  Calvin  and  afterwards  his  successor  at  Geneva.  Like 
all  religious  conferences  it  was  quite  useless. 

In  January,  1562,  an  important  concession  was  made  to  the 
Protestants  by  an  edict  which  gave  them  permission  to  have 
conventicles  in  cities.  But  almost  immediately  afterwards 
Fran(jois  de  Guise  attacked  a  group  of  Huguenots  Avho  were  at 
worship  near  Vassy,  and  basely  massacred  women  and  children. 
A  civil  war  followed  which  lasted  with  a  few  intervals  for  some 
eight  years.  It  terminated  through  the  influence  of  Admiral 
de  Coligny,  by  a  treaty  favourable  to  liberty  of  worship,  signed 
at  St.  Germain. 

Henri  de  Bourbon,  Protestant  King  of  Navarre,  was  be- 
trothed to  the  sister  of  Charles  IX.  As  it  appeared  unlikely 
that  either  Charles  or  his  brother  Henri  would  have  children, 
the  crown  of  France  threatened  to  pass  to  a  Prince  of  the 
Reformation ;  an  alarming  prospect  for  Rome,  for  having  lost 
England,  she  was  all  the  more  tenacious  of  her  footing  in 
France.  As  early  as  March  28,  1569,  Pius  V.  wrote  to 
Charles  IX :  "  Pursue  and  crush  all  enemies  who  remain. 
Unless  you  pull  up  the  last  roots  of  the  evil,  they  will  shoot 
again  as  they  have  already  done  so  often."  This  was  preaching 
the  policy  of  extermination,  which  had   already  been  put  in 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     131 

force  against  the  Albigenses.  It  led  directly  to  the  Massacre 
of  St.  Bartholomew. 

49.  Catherine  de'  Medici  and  Charles  prepared  the  trap. 
They  chose  a  moment  when  all  the  Huguenot  chiefs  were  in 
Paris  for  the  marriage  of  the  King  of  Navarre.  On  the  night 
of  August  24,  1572,  the  Eve  of  St.  Bartholomew,  the  mob, 
warned  by  the  tocsin,  flung  themselves  upon  the  Huguenots  and 
began  a  massacre  which  lasted  for  several  days.  Admiral  de 
Coligny,  who  "  only  breathed  for  the  good  of  the  State,*"  ^  was 
the  first  victim.  Ten  thousand  men  were  slaughtered  in  Paris, 
and  in  spite  of  the  resistance  of  a  few  governors  and  military 
commandants,  who  were  willing  to  be  soldiers  but  not  to  be 
executioners,  the  same  horrors  were  enacted  in  the  provinces. 
Henry  of  Navarre  abjured  his  faith  to  save  his  life,  and  for  some 
four  years  gave  himself  up  to  shameful  pleasures.  He  even  did 
his  best  to  harry  his  former  co-religionists.  One  day,  however, 
he  disappeared  from  Paris,  and  again  joined  the  Reformers. 

"  The  throats  of  thirty  thousand  of  their  comrades  had  been 
cut  at  a  time  of  peace ;  about  two  millions  were  left  to  make 
war."  2  After  the  death  of  Charles  IX.,  which  followed  the 
massacre  at  no  long  interval,  his  brother  and  successor,  Henri 
III.,  fearing  the  ambition  of  the  Due  de  Guise,  began  by  making 
overtures  to  the  Protestants  and  disavowing  the  Massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew.  Henri  de  Guise,  encouraged  by  the  Pope 
and  helped  by  Philip  II.,  created  the  Holy  League,  the  object  of 
which  was  to  exterminate  the  Reformers  and  to  prevent  the  crown 
of  France  from  passing  to  a  Huguenot  king.  They  avowedly 
preferred  the  daughter  of  Philip  II.  to  the  King  of  Navarre, 
secretly  hoping  to  substitute  the  House  of  Lorraine  for  that  ot 
Valois.  The  League  was  recruited  among  the  ignorant  rabble, 
directed  and  paid  by  the  monks,  who  took  care  to  feed  their 
fanaticism.  It  was  an  army  of  crime  and  disorder  in  the  service 
of  the  Church.  Henri  HI.,  a  feeble  and  abject  creature,  was 
driven  by  fear  to  declare  himself  head  of  the  League.  Under 
the  impulse  of  the  same  passion,  he  ended  by  allying  himself 
with  the  King  of  Navarre,  and  besieging  Paris  in  his  company 

*  Montesquieu. 

^  Voltaire.     Two  millions  seems  an  over-statement  of  their  number. 


132     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

(1589).  He  was  assassinated  by  Jacques  Clement,  a  Dominican 
friar.  Henri  de  Bourbon  then  became  legitimate  King  of 
France.  He  knew  well  enough,  however,  that  in  spite  of  his 
repeated  successes  he  was  not  accepted  by  the  Catholic  majority 
in  the  country.  So  once  more  he  abjured,  made  the  dangerous 
leap  [satit  perilleiicc\  in  the  conviction  that  "  Paris  was  well 
worth  a  Mass,"  and  obtained  the  submission  of  the  League 
(1593)  chiefly  by  gifts  of  money  and  pensions  to  the  leaders. 

50.  Pius  V.'s  successor,  Gregory  XIII.,  struck  a  medal  in 
memory  of  the  St.  Bartholomew  with  the  legend  Ugonotoiiim 
strages  (the  carnage  of  the  Huguenots),  and  commissioned 
Vasari  to  paint  those  frescoes  representing  the  massacre  which 
still  dishonour  the  walls  of  a  saloon  in  the  Vatican.  Vain 
attempts  have  been  made  to  absolve  the  Pope  and  his  Legate  of 
all  responsibility  for  this  inexpiable  crime.  The  Church  found 
it  quite  a  natural  proceeding  to  get  rid  of  the  Huguenots,  as  it 
had  of  the  sectaries  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by  collective  murder. 
We  have  already  quoted  the  message  of  Pius  V.  to  Charles  IX. 
On  the  fatal  24th  of  August,  while  the  massacre  was  going  on, 
the  Nuncio  Salviati  wrote  to  Gregory  XIII. :  "  With  your 
Holiness  I  rejoice  from  my  heart  that  the  King  and  the  Queen 
Mother  have  been  able  to  exterminate  these  infected  people 
with  so  much  prudence  and  at  a  moment  so  opportune,  when 
the  rebels  were  all  locked  up  in  their  cage."  Gregory  XIII. 
celebrated  "  the  most  happy  tidings  of  the  destruction  of  the 
Huguenot  sect"  with  a  religious  ceremony.  He  sent  to  the 
French  Court  the  Legate  Orsini,  who,  on  his  way  through 
Lyons,  publicly  distributed  indulgences  to  those  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  massacres.  Finally  he  presented  the  golden  rose, 
instituted  to  reward  ardent  zeal  for  the  Church,  to  Charles  IX., 
the  crowned  assassin  of  his  own  subjects. 

51.  The  Edict  of  Nantes  (1598),  a  decree  confirmatory  of 
previous  treaties,  though  with  certain  restrictions,  gave  religious 
peace  to  France  for  a  time.  This  "  perpetual  and  irrevocable  " 
edict  authorised  the  reformed  worship  and  the  teaching  of 
Protestant  theology  ;  also,  by  the  institution  of  mixed  tribunals 
[chambres  mi-parties)^  secured  equality  for  the  Huguenots  in 
the  administration   of  justice.     Several   cities,  called  Cities  of 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     183 

Refuge  {Villes  de  stiretS),  were  awarded  to  the  Protestants. 
One  of  these,  La  Rochellc,  became  a  sort  of  French  Geneva. 
This  was  repeating  the  mistake  already  committed  in  the  Edict 
of  St.  Germain,  and  setting  up  a  state  within  the  State  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Reformers. 

• 

52.  After  the  assassination  (1610)  of  Henri  Quatre  by 
Ravaillac,  the  "  blind  instrument  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,"  ^  the 
condition  of  the  Huguenots  remained  a  favourable  one  during 
the  early  years  of  Louis  XHL's  minority.  But  Richelieu, 
although  allied  with  the  Protestant  princes  against  the  House 
of  Austria,  was  too  eager  for  the  grandeur  and  unity  of  France 
to  tolerate  such  an  institution  as  the  Ville.s  de  surete.  After  an 
heroic  defence  by  her  mayor,  Guiton,  La  Rochelle  had  to  yield 
to  famine  (1628).  The  Edict  of  Nantes  was  confirmed  by  that 
of  Nimes  (1629),  but  the  Huguenots  were  deprived  of  their 
strongholds. 

53.  From  this  time  onward  it  was  no  longer  policy  but 
fanaticism  and  cupidity  which  controlled  events.  Taking  advan- 
tage of  every  rivalry  in  interests  or  commerce,  the  Church  never 
ceased  to  demand  from  the  Crown  the  withdrawal  of  all  conces- 
sions granted  to  the  Protestants.  Her  chief  supporters  in  this 
campaign  were  the  Chancellor  Le  Tellier  and  his  son  Louvois. 
The  Edict  of  Nantes  was  never  accepted  by  the  Catholic  clergy, 
and  its  history  is  that  of  its  revocation. ^ 

The  learned  Oratorian,  Richard  Simon,  wrote  :  "  If  Cardinal 
Richelieu  had  not  died  so  early,  we  should  long  ago  have 
had  no  Huguenots  in  the  kingdom."  The  Crown  needed  the 
gratuities  it  received  from  the  clergy.  These  were  always 
accompanied  by  demands  for  measures  against  the  Protestants. 
"  Where  are  the  laws,"  said  an  orator  before  the  child  Louis  XIV., 
at  an  assembly  of  the  clergy  in  1651 — "  where  are  the  laws 
which  banish  heretics  from  intercourse  with  their  fellow-men  ? " 
"We  hope,  at  least,"  said  another  speaker,  "that  if  your 
authority  cannot  put  a  summary  end  to  this  evil,  it  may  cause 
it  to  languish  and  die  through  the  gradual  retrenchment  and 

1  Voltaire. 

2  Puaux,  Les  pr^curseurg  frangaise  de  la  tolerance,  Paris,  1881,  p.  2. 


134     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

diminution  of  its  forces."  This  programme  was  faithfully 
carried  out.  Protestant  advocates  were  excluded  from  the 
tribunals  (1664),  Protestant  notaries  were  forbidden  to  prac- 
tise (1682).  Protestants  were  shut  out  from  all  sorts  of  trades. 
They  could  not  be  apothecaries,  or  surgeons,  or  midwives  ; 
they  could  be  employed  in  no  public  office.  Their  places  of 
worship  were  next  attacked  and  demolished,  their  pastors  were 
driven  out,  their  schoolmasters  restricted  to  teaching  their 
pupils  to  read,  while  children  were  allowed  to  become  Catholics 
at  the  age  of  seven,  whether  their  parents  sanctioned  their 
conversion  or  not  (1684).  The  condition  of  the  Protestants 
became  intolerable.  Many  of  the  rich  and  noble  apostatised 
in  order  to  obtain  posts  at  Court.  Thousands  of  the  poor  were 
bought  by  the  gold  of  Pellisson,  himself  a  converted  (^alvinist, 
who  had  the  administration  of  the  secret  largesses  of  the  Church. 
Many  more  of  the  poor  and  of  the  learned  classes  emigrated, 
and  formed,  especially  in  Holland,  those  communities  of  refugees 
from  whom  the  world  learnt  the  truth  about  Louis  XIV.'s 
government,  and  among  which,  under  the  lash  of  persecution, 
the  notion  of  religious  toleration  and  political  liberty  first  took 
definite  shape. 

54.  Louis  XIV.  seems  to  have  been  led  to  believe  that 
most  of  the  Protestants  had  been  converted  or  had  quitted 
France.  So  he  revoked  the  presumably  useless  Edict  of 
Nantes,  "  in  order  to  efface  the  memory  of  the  past  troubles  " 
(October  18,  1685).  Protestant  places  of  worship  were  to  be 
demolished,  Protestant  worship  itself  suppressed,  schools  closed, 
pastors  banished  on  pain  of  death.  But  the  Protestant  laity 
were  forbidden  to  leave  France  on  pain  of  the  galleys.  They 
were  compelled  to  remain,  but  had  to  abstain  from  any  form  of 
worship.  Their  children,  being  inscribed  on  no  parish  registers, 
were  all  accounted  illegitimate.  Family  ties  suffered  no  less 
than  individual  consciences. 

55.  Those  Protestants  who  succeeded  in  evading  or  corrupt- 
ing the  King's  police  passed  the  frontier  (fifty  thousand  families 
in  three  years),  taking  their  energies  and  what  was  left  of  their 
property  to  Holland,  Prussia,  England,  and  Switzerland.  In 
order  to  crush  those  who  stayed  behind,  the  authorities  imposed 


FROM   LUTHER  TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     135 

garrisons  of  dragoons  upon  them  (1685).  These  soldiers  be- 
haved like  drunken  savages,  hanging,  smoking  out,  and  flogging 
men  and  women,  dragging  them  half  dead  to  the  churches, 
"  where  their  mere  enforced  presence,"  writes  Pastor  Claude  in 
1686,  "  was  reckoned  as  a  recantation."  Houses  were  destroyed, 
trees  cut  down,  women  and  children  thrown  into  convents. 
Even  the  dead  were  not  spared.  As  in  the  days  of  the  In- 
quisition in  Languedoc,  the  corpses  of  those  who  had  died 
without  confession  were  tried  and  dragged  off  on  hurdles  to  be 
thrown  into  the  common  sewer.  "  At  Caen,  as  in  many  other 
towns,  unhappy  parents  might  be  seen  following  the  hurdles 
on  which  the  bodies  of  their  children  were  being  drawn,  to  be 
hacked  in  pieces  by  the  pupils  of  the  Jesuits."  ^  The  Hugue- 
nots made  the  country  ring  with  their  lamentations,  but  they 
did  not  rebel.  "Must  they  make  all  these  efforts,"  asked 
Jurieu,  "  to  tear  out  those  French  hearts  which  God  and  our 
birth  have  given  us  't "  "^ 

56.  At  last,  after  seventeen  years  of  atrocious  persecution, 
an  insurrection  did  break  out  (1702).  Deprived  of  their  pastors, 
the  Protestants  of  the  Cevennes  used  to  celebrate  their  worship 
in  the  solitude  of  the  mountains.  Every  meeting  surprised 
by  the  authorities  was  treated  with  frightful  severity,  chiefly  on 
the  instigation  of  the  Intendant  Lamoignon  de  Baville,  a  vrotege 
of  Madame  de  Maintenon.  The  unhappy  people,  who  were 
called  Camisards,  exasperated  and  fired  by  mystic  delirium, 
revolted,  and  for  three  years  kept  at  bay  three  Marshals  of 
France,  of  whom  Villars  was  one.  Their  leaders  were  Roland 
and  Jean  Cavalier.^  It  was  a  horrible  war,  in  which  the 
vanquished  were  put  to  death  or  sent  to  the  galleys,  and  in 
which  neither  age  nor  sex  was  a  protection  from  the  violence  of 
the  soldiers.  The  memory  of  all  this  still  lingers  in  the 
Ce'vennes.  It  should  be  kept  alive  everywhere.  But  during  the 
whole   of   the    nineteenth    century   public   education,    severely 

^  F.  Puaux,  Prdcurseurs  de  la  toUrance,  p.  23  (after  Legendre,  Vie  de  Du 
Bosc,  p.  150). 

2  Ibid.,  p.  31. 

'  Cavalier  afterwards  escaped  to  England,  where  he  was  well  received  l)j' 
Queen  Anne,  and  ended  his  days  as  Governor  of  Jersey.  Voltaire  met  him  in 
England,  and  formed  a  high  opinion  of  him. 


186     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

controlled  by  the  Roman  Church,  threw  a  veil  over  these  crimes 
as  it  did  over  so  many  others.  French  historical  manuals  gave 
them  at  most  a  few  lines,  while  one  generation  after  another  has 
learnt  from  these  same  books  to  pity  the  victims  of  the  Terror. 
57.  Everywhere  and  always,  in  this  long  catalogue  of  out- 
rages on  human  right,  when  kings  and  ministers  proscribe  and 
soldiers  strike,  it  is  the  implacable  Roman  Church  which 
directs  sword  or  pen.  This  has  to  be  shown,  in  answer  to 
the  falsehoods  of  those  apologists  who  pretend,  for  example, 
that  the  Pope  disapproved  of  the  Revocation.  After  the 
disaster  of  Ramillies,  Louis  XIV.  cried:  "Has  God  then  for- 
gotten all  I  have  done  for  Him?"  As  God  did  not  address 
himself  directly  to  the  Roi  Sokil,  Louis  here  implies  that  he 
had  followed  the  advice  of  his  clergy,  of  those  Jesuit  directors 
who  were  for  him  the  sole  interpreters  of  the  Divine  Will.  In 
January  1685,  the  French  Ambassador  to  the  Vatican  trans- 
mitted the  following  words  of  Pope  Innocent  XI.  to  Versailles : 
"  Truly,  we  give  all  praise  to  the  king  (Louis  XIV.),  who  has 
destroyed  so  great  a  number  of  heretics,  and  wishes  to  exter- 
minate that  unhappy  sect  entirely  in  his  kingdom."  On 
May  8,  1685,  d'Estrees  wrote  to  the  king:  "The  Pope  praised 
not  only  the  continual  care  and  application  of  your  Majesty 
for  the  extirpation  of  heresy,  but  also  the  methods  of  which 
your  Majesty  has  made  use,  winning  some  by  kindness,  driving 
others  from  their  charges  and  employments,  striking  terror  into 
those  who  could  not  be  otherwise  reduced."  After  the  Revoca- 
tion, the  Pope  declared  to  the  ambassador  "  that  nothing  could 
be  finer,  and  that  no  other  instance  of  such  an  action  could  be 
found."  He  also  decided  "  that  he  would  bear  public  witness 
to  his  joy  and  satisfaction  with  all  possible  splendour."  On 
April  28,  1686,  he  celebrated  the  Revocation  by  giving  plenary 
indulgence  to  all  those  who  visited  the  French  Church  of  St. 
Louis  in  Rome.  St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican  were  illuminated. 
Father  Coronelli  published  an  account  of  these  celebrations 
under  the  significant  title,  "  Rome  triumphant  on  the  occasion 
of  the  extirpation  of  heresy,  by  an  edict  given  at  Fontainebleau 
in  October  1685."  The  Jesuit  Semery  gave  a  discourse  from 
which   we  learn   that  Pope  Innocent    XI.   had   requested    the 


FROM  LUTHER  TO  THE  ENCYCLOPiEDIA    137 

Cardinal  d'Estrees  to  use  all  his  influence  with  Louis  XIV.  to 
get  him  "  to  destroy  the  plague  and  contagion  of  Calvinism." 
Finally,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  on  November  13,  1685, 
Innocent  addressed  a  brief  to  Louis,  in  which  he  declared  the 
Revocation  to  be  "  the  finest  thing  his  Majesty  had  ever  done, 
the  best  fitted  to  immortalise  his  memory  and  to  draw  upon 
him  the  rarest  blessings  of  Heaven." 

58.  If  God  forgot  what  Louis  XIV.  had  done  for  Him,  there 
were  also  a  few  Catholics  who  preached  a  somewhat  tardy  tolera- 
tion after  the  military  and  economical  disasters  by  which  the 
Revocation  was  followed.     Thus  Fenelon  advised  the  English 
Young  Pretender,  James  Stuart :  "  Never  compel  your  subjects 
to  change  their  religion  ;  no  human  power  can  force  the  im- 
pregnable retrenchment  of  the  heart.    Force  can  never  persuade 
men :  it  only  makes  hypocrites.     Grant  civil  toleration  to  all, 
not  as  approving  everything  indifferently,  but  as  suffering  with 
patience  all  that  God  suffers ;  and  seek  to  recall  men  to  their 
duty   by   gentle   persuasion."^       In   these   beautiful    lines   we 
recognise  the  remorse  of  a  conscience  illuminated   by  recent 
misfortune.     But  Fenelon  himself  was  then  undergoing  persecu- 
tion.    As  for  his  great  rival,  Bossuet,  he  argued  against  the 
Protestant  ministers,  calling  attention  in  his  own  magnificent 
periods  to  the  variations  of  their  creeds,  but,  so  far  as  we  know, 
he  had  no  word  of  pity  for  their  sufferings.    Indeed,  he  glorified 
the    Revocation.      "You    have,"    he    said    to    Louis     XIV., 
"  strengthened  the  faith ;  you  have  exterminated  the  heretics ; 
that  is  an  exploit  worthy  of  your  reign."     What  is  true  of 
Bossuet   is  true  of  most   of  his   contemporaries.     When    the 
Church's  glory  is  at   stake,  even  noble  hearts   are   hardened. 
"Our  one  preoccupation   is  the  destruction   of  heresy,"  cried 
Daniel  de  Cosnac,  Bishop  of  Valence,  on  July  2,  1685. 

,  •  •  •  • 

69.  Louis  XIV.,  who  came  near  to  extirpating  Protestantism 
in  France,  deserves  credit  for  introducing  order  and  decency  {la 
regie  et  la  decence  is  Voltaire's  phrase)  into  French  Catholicism. 
Great  disorders  had  existed  under  Louis   XIII.     "Nearly  all 

»  F6nelon,  CEuvres  (Gaume  ed.  vol.  vii.  p.  102).     The  authenticity  of  this 
passage  has  been  questioned. 


140    A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

But  two  others  existed  which,  in  spite  of  being  condemned  by 
the  Church,  did  good  service  in  repressing  what  was  then  called 
Libertinage.  These  were  the  Protestant  Reformation,  which  was 
a  revival  of  the  religious  spirit ;  and  Jansenism,  which  a  Jesuit 
described  as  a  bungled  Calvinism  (Cahmiisme  barbouille). 

63.  The  famous  quarrel  between  Jesuits  and  Jansenists  in 
France  corresponds  to  the  fight  between  Arminians  and  Gomar- 
ists  in  Holland.  Cornelius  Jansen  (Jansenius),  Bishop  of  Ypres, 
had  written  three  great  folio  volumes  upon  St.  Augustine  which 
appeared  after  his  death  and  found  a  certain  number  of  readers 
in  France.  In  this  book  Jansen  adopted  St.  Augustine's  opinions 
on  Grace,  whittling  away,  like  Calvin,  the  part  played  by  the 
human  will  in  the  work  of  salvation.  The  Jesuits,  with  their 
practical  good  sense,  could  not  admit  such  a  doctrine ;  not  that 
it  was  logically  false,  but  because  it  tended,  like  Calvinism, 
towards  the  neglect  of  those  good  works  which  benefited  the 
Church  and,  it  must  be  added,  society  at  large.  In  France, 
certain  theologians  grouped  about  the  Abbey  of  Port  Royal — 
Duvergier,  Abbot  of  St.  Cyran,  the  Arnaulds,  Nicole  and  Pascal 
— adopted  Jansenism  in  their  antagonism  to  the  Jesuits,  to  whom 
some  of  the  Port  Royalists,  the  Arnaulds,  for  instance,  were 
opposed  for  personal  motives.  They  made  a  difference  of  opinion 
on  an  insoluble  question  a  pretext  for  discrediting  their  enemies. 
These  latter,  supported  by  Rome  and  with  the  strength  given  by 
the  confessional  and  by  their  wealth,  ended  by  getting  the  upper 
hand.  But  a  whole  century  was  disturbed  by  the  dispute.  The 
details  of  the  long  controversy  are  so  futile  that  it  would  be 
folly  to  load  one's  memory  with  them.  Their  chief  interest  lies 
in  the  fact  that  they  contributed  indirectly  to  prepare  the 
religious  emancipation  of  the  eighteenth  century.  But  the  men 
who  set  themselves  against  the  easy  religion  of  the  Jesuits,  and 
the  saintly  women,  such  as  Angelique  Arnauld,  Abbess  of  Port 
Royal,  who  were  associated  with  them,  still  retain  their  influence 
on  men's  minds  by  the  intensity  of  their  moral  life,  the  gravity 
of  their  mode  of  thought,  and  their  tranquil  courage.  "  Ces 
Messieurs  de  Port  Royal "  are  imposing  doctrinaires,  great 
figures  towering  above  the  baseness  and  corruption  of  their 
times. 


FROM   LUTHER  TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     141 

64.  In    1641,  the   Jesuits   obtained   the   condemnation    of 
Jansen's   book   by   Rome.      The    Paris    Faculty   of  Theology 
denounced  five  of  its  propositions.     The  sense  of  these  proposi- 
tions was   taken  from   the  book,  but  not  their  text.     Hence 
an  interminable  quarrel.     Were  the  five  propositions  in  Jansen 
or  were  they  not.?     Innocent  X.,  in  his  turn,  condemned  the 
five  propositions,  but  again  without  quoting  the  pages  from 
which  they  professed  to  be  taken.     Antoine  Arnauld,  a  prolific 
and  lucid  writer,  took  up  the  struggle ;  the  propositions,  he  said, 
were  in  St.  Augustine,  so  it  was  that  great  Father  of  the  Church 
they  were  condemning !     Here  Arnauld  was  quite  right.     "  The 
Jansenists  affirmed  that  their  system,  the  doctrine  of  St.  Augus- 
tine, was  the  veritable  tradition  of  the  Church.     In  this  they 
were  not  altogether  wrong,  but  their  mistake  lay  in  wishing  to 
impose  St.  Augustine  on  a  Church  which  had  to  some  extent 
outgrown  him."  ^     In  1654  the  Sorbonne  expelled  Arnauld,  but 
it  could  not  silence  him.    Under  persecution  he  had  more  friends 
than  ever.     The  French  bishops  wished  to  compel  the  nuns  of 
Port  Royal  to  endorse  the  condemnation  of  the  five  propositions. 
They  refused.    Rigorous  measures  were  about  to  be  taken,  when 
Pascal's  niece,  a  pens'ionna'ire  of  Port  Royal,  was  cured  of  a 
lachrymal  fistula  by  kissing  a  thorn  from  the  Crown  of  Jesus. 
The  Jesuits  denied  the  miracle.     Racine  and  Pascal  believed  in 
it,  the  latter  to  the  extent  of  accepting  it  as  proof  that  the  five 
propositions  were  true !     Fanned  by  a  passion  of  credulity,  the 
campaign   against   the   Jesuits   grew   more   furious  than  ever. 
"  Every  means  of  making  them  odious  was  tried.     Pascal  went 
further :  he  made  them  ridiculous.    His  Provincial  Letters,  which 
appeared  at  this  time,  were  models  of  eloquence  and  judicious 
mockery.    The  best  comedies  of  Moliere  are  not  richer  in  humour 
than   the   earlier  Letters:    Bossuet   has  left   us  nothing   more 
sublime  than  the  later."  ^     No  doubt.     But  if  we  look  a  little 
closer,  we  see   that  what    Pascal    denounces  in   the  Jesuits  is 
modernism  in  the  moral  laAv,  preference  of  the  spirit  to  the 
letter,  and  progress.' 

*  Loisy,  Qudques  Lettres,  p.  175.  *  Voltaire. 

'  We  must,  of  course,  except  certain  intolerable  theories  advanced  by  a 
few  Jesuit  writers,  which  Pascal  very  justly  condemns. 


142     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

65.  The  subtle  Italian,  Clement  X.,  re-established  a  sem- 
blance of  peace.  Jansenism,  under  the  protection  of  the  Duchesse 
de  Longueville,  sister  of  the  great  Conde,  took  advantage  of  this 
to  extend  its  influence.  The  king  and  the  Jesuits  resumed  the 
struggle.  Arnauld  had  to  fly,  and  died  at  Brussels  in  1694, 
at  a  great  age.  A  new  Bull  from  Clement  XL  (1705)  was 
presented  for  signature  to  the  nuns  of  Port  Royal.  On  their 
refusal  they  were  again  driven  out  of  their  convent.  Worse  still, 
this  was  demolished  in  1709  by  order  of  the  lieutenant  of  police. 
In  1711  the  bodies  interred  in  the  churchyard  were  dug  up. 
Boileau  himself  shuddered  at  this.  His  fine  epitaph  on  the 
"  Great  Arnauld,"  whose  corpse  in  its  Belgian  grave  was  beyond 
the  reach  of  Jesuit  vengeance,  concludes  with  the  following 
quatrain  : 

Et  meme  par  sa  mort  leur  fureiir  mal  6teinte 
N'aurait  jamais  ]aiss6  ses  cendres  en  repos, 
Si  Dieu  lui-meme,  ici,  de  son  ouaille  sainte 
A  ces  loops  devorants  n'avait  cach6  les  os.^ 

66.  An  Oratorian,  Pere  Quesnel,  a  friend  and  companion  of 
Ai-nauld,  had  written  a  pious  book  which  at  first  won  the 
approval  of  Clement  XI.  It  was  dedicated  to  Cardinal  de 
Noailles,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  an  honest  prelate  who  was  hated 
by  the  Jesuits.  These  latter,  who  had  become  all-powerful 
when  Pere  de  la  Chaise  had  been  chosen  to  direct  the  conscience 
of  Louis  XIV.,  denounced  Quesnel,  who  retired  to  Amsterdam, 
where  he  died.  The  condenuiation  of  his  book  was  demanded 
from  Rome,  and  obtained  from  the  same  Pope  who  had 
previously  blessed  it.  After  the  death  of  La  Chaise,  the  king's 
Jesuit  confessor  was  Le  Tellier,  a  thoroughly  bad  man,  bent  on 
the  'ruin  of  Cardinal  de  Noailles.  He  reached  his  end  through 
the  weakness  of  Louis,  who  obtained  the  famous  Bull  Unigenitus 
from  the  Pope.  This  Bull  condemned  a  hundred  and  one  more 
or  less  Jansenist  propositions  put  forward  by  Quesnel.  Most  of 
these  were  entirely  inoffensive.  The  cardinal  refused  to  accept 
the  Bull,  and  complained  to  the  Pope.  The  king  forbade  the 
cardinal  to  appear  at  Court.  Le  Tellier  was  all-powerful,  and 
the  prisons  were  filled  with  Jansenists.     The  king's  death  alone 

^  Sainte-Beuve,  Port  Royal,  vol.  v.  p.  476.     Boileau  wrote  this  epigram 
but  never  published  it. 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     143 

prevented  the  deposition  of  the  cardinal.  As  the  latter  was 
very  popular,  the  Regent  made  him  president  of  the  Conseil  de 
Conscience,  and  banished  Le  Tellier.  But  the  affair  of  the  Bull 
was  by  no  means  at  an  end,  "  The  Church  in  France  remained 
divided  into  two  camps,  the  Acceptans  and  the  Refusans.  The 
acceptors  were  the  hundred  bishops  who  had  given  in  their 
adhesion  under  Louis  XIV.,  together  with  the  Jesuits  and  the 
Capuchins.  The  refusers  were  fifteen  bishops  and  the  nation 
at  large."  ^ 

67.  Thanks  to  the  amiable  scepticism  of  the  Regent,  who 

wanted  peace,  and  the  tact  of  Archbishop,  afterwards  Cardinal, 

Dubois,  the  Bull  was  at  last  registered,  and  Cardinal  de  Noailles 

retracted  (1720).     But  the  Jansenists  did  not  disarm.     A  deacon 

called  Paris,  who  had  died  in  the  odour  of  sanctity,  had  been 

buried  in  the  cemetery  of  St.  Medard.  The  Jansenists  announced 

that  miracles  were  being  worked  at  his  tomb ;    that  tremblings 

and  upheavals  were  felt  there,  which  cured  the  deaf,  the  blind, 

and  the  lame.     "  These  prodigies  were  attested  in  due  form  of 

law  by  a  crowd  of  witnesses,  who  had  almost  seen  them,  because 

they  had  come  in  hopes  of  seeing  them."     As  the  cemetery  was 

invaded  day  and  night  by  a  crowd  of  sick  and  idle  people,  it 

was  shut  up  and  a  guard  set  at  the  gate,  on  which  some  wit  wrote 

the  famous  distich : 

De  par  le  roi,  defense  h  Dieu 
De  faire  miracle  en  ce  lieu  ! 

68.  The  Jansenists  survived  in  France  throughout  the 
eighteenth  century,  especially  in  the  parliaments.  When 
Christophe  de  Beaumont,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  attempted,  in 
1752,  to  refuse  absolution  to  those  who  had  not  subscribed  to 
the  Bull  Unigenitus,  the  parliaments  rose  against  the  foolish 
pretension,  and  it  required  the  intervention  of  the  Pope  to 
prevent  the  quarrel  between  the  parliament  and  the  archbishop 
from  becoming  one  between  the  parliament  and  the  monarchy. 

69.  There  are  Jansenists  still  in  Paris  and  in  Holland. 
They  ai-e  quiet  people,  of  excellent  morals,  who  no  longer  work 
miracles. 

•  •  •  •  • 

*  Voltaire. 


144    A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

70.  The  Quietist  movement  was  of  no  less  import,  for  it  set 
Bossuet  and  Fenelon  in  opposition  to  each  other.  This  extra- 
vagance Avas  of  Spanish  origin.  Thanks  to  the  protection  of 
Philip  XL,  St.  Theresa  had  escaped  the  rigours  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, which  did  not  readily  tolerate  mystics.  But  the  Spaniard, 
Miguel  Molinos,  who  taught  in  Rome  the  doctrine  of  the 
perfect  contemplation,  of  direct  communication  with  God,  with- 
out the  intervention  of  a  priest,  was  condemned  by  the  Inquisi- 
tion (1685)  and  died  in  prison  (1696).  A  young  and  fascinating 
widow,  Madame  Guyon,  aspired  to  be  the  St.  Theresa  of  France. 
Under  the  direction  of  a  Barnabite  called  La  Combe,  she 
succeeded  in  gathering  recruits  in  Paris,  among  others  Madame 
de  Maintenon  and  the  Duchesses  de  Chevreuse  and  de  Beau- 
villiers.  Fenelon,  at  that  time  tutor  to  the  royal  children,  set 
himself  to  love  God  in  company  with  Madame  Guyon.  "  It  is 
strange  that  he  should  have  been  seduced  by  a  woman  given 
over  to  prophecies,  revelations,  and  jargon,  who  was  choked  by 
internal  grace,  and  had  to  have  her  stays  loosened  to  give  it 
room,  pouring  out  the  overflow  of  her  own  grace  on  the  elect 
who  sat  beside  her."  ^  When  Madame  Guyon  propagated  her 
illusions  at  Saint-Cyr,  Madame  de  Maintenon,  warned  by  the 
bishops,  withdrew  her  countenance  and  forbade  the  lady  to  enter 
the  house.  Fenelon  advised  Madame  Guyon  to  submit  her 
writings  to  Bossuet,  Bishop  of  Meaux.  Bossuet  condemned 
them,  and  she  promised  to  dogmatise  no  more.  Meanwhile 
Fenelon  had  become  Bishop  of  Cambrai  (1695).  In  spite  of  her 
promise,  Madame  Guyon  failed  to  keep  silence,  so  the  king  shut 
her  up  in  Vincennes.  Bossuet  required  Fenelon  to  associate 
himself  with  the  condemnation  of  Madame  Guyon.  Fenelon 
refused,  and  published  his  Maximes  des  Saints,  which  is  tainted 
with  Quietism.  Bossuet  hated  the  Quietists  and  no  longer  loved 
Fenelon.  He  wrote  in  opposition  to  his  quondam  friend,  and 
both  submitted  their  works  to  Innocent  XII.  After  much 
hesitation,  the  Pope,  hard  pressed  by  Louis  XIV.,  condemned 
Fenelon  (1699).  He  submitted  nobly,  and  disavowed  his  own 
book  from  his  pulpit  at  Cambrai.  He  spent  the  rest  of  his  life 
in  "  honourable  and  philosophical "  retreat,  as  Voltaire  called  it, 

*  Voltaire. 


FROM   LUTHER   TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     145 

at  Cambrai,  and  gave  up  his  time  to  good  works.  His  Telemaque^ 
which  is  still  read,  suffices  to  class  him  among  the  Utopians  ; 
those  who  see  in  him  an  intellectual  ancestor  of  Rousseau  are 
not  altogether  wrong. 

71.  Madame  Guyon  died  in  obscurity,  in  1717,  after  fifteen 

years  of  retirement  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Blois,     Age  and 

solitude  calmed  the  nerves  of  this  honest  but  hysterical  woman, 

"  who  had  espoused  Jesus  Christ  in  one  of  her  ecstasies  and, 

from  that  time  onward,  had   prayed   no   more  to  the  saints, 

explaining  that  the  "  mistress  of  a  house  does  not  petition  her 

servants."  ^ 

»  «  •  •  • 

72.  In  Spain,  political  supremacy  had  been  reconquered  by 
the  Christians  after  long  years  of  war  (1492).  The  population 
was  divided  into  three  groups,  the  Christians,  the  Musulmans  or 
Moors,  and  the  Jews.  The  first  were  chiefly  warriors,  the  second 
agriculturists,  and  the  third  scholars  and  traders.  All  these 
people  asked  for  nothing  but  to  live  in  peace  and  keep  up 
friendly  relations.  It  was  the  Church  which  worked  hard,  as 
early  as  the  eleventh  century,  to  set  them  at  each  other's  throats. 
She  succeeded  only  too  well.  The  Inquisition,  legally  subject 
to  the  royal  power,  which,  however,  it  threatened  to  usurp,  was 
instituted  in  1480.  It  set  about  harrying  and  burning  Musul- 
mans and  Jews.  Many  of  these  had  been  forcibly  converted  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  but  were  suspected  of  the  crime  of 
relapse  and  of  secretly  practising  their  ancient  rites.  Infidels, 
as  such,  escaped  the  Inquisition,  but  if  a  man  had  been  baptised, 
even  by  force  or  fraud,  it  claimed  power  over  his  body  and  con- 
science. As  the  smallest  offence  in  the  direction  of  relapse 
(such,  for  example,  as  abstaining  from  pork)  was  punishable 
by  the  confiscation  of  the  offender's  property  and  its  division 
between  the  Crown  and  the  Inquisition,  the  cupidity  of  her 
princes  and  the  fanaticism  of  her  monks  soon  turned  Spain  into 
a  hell  lighted  only  by  the  flames  of  the  stake. 

73.  The  first  Grand  Inquisitor,  Confessor  of  both  King  and 
Queen,  the  Dominican  friar  Torquemada,  was  eulogised  by  Pope 
Sixtus  IV.     He  had  caused  six  thousand  victims  to  be  burnt. 

1  Voltaire. 


146     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

These  infamous  ceremonies  were  called  acts  of  faith,  autos  dafe. 
The  king  was  present  at  them,  bareheaded,  and  on  a  seat  lower 
than  that  of  the  Grand  Inquisitor.  Thus  began  a  long  drama 
of  misery  and  oppression.  All  scientific  activities  were  sup- 
pressed, and  the  Middle  Ages  were  prolonged  in  Spain  down  to 
our  own  days.  "  Thence  it  is  that  silence  has  become  one  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  Spanish  people,  though  they  are  born 
with  all  the  vivacity  given  by  a  warm  and  fertile  climate."  ^ 

But  the  most  outrageous  prosecutions  were  not  enough. 
The  authorities  believed,  or  pretended  to  believe,  that  national 
unity  could  only  be  secured  by  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  (1492) 
and  Moors  (1609)  en  masse.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  these 
unhappy  people  had  to  go  into  exile  ;  tens  of  thousands  died  on 
the  way.  Spain  was  stripped  of  its  best  workers,  of  its  ablest 
traders,  of  its  most  skilful  doctors.  The  Papacy  found  all  these 
severities  natural  enough.  If,  sometimes,  it  seems  to  have 
sought  a  quarrel  with  the  all-powerful  Spanish  Inquisition,  this 
was  not  because  the  latter  roasted  or  slaughtered  too  many 
unbelievers,  but  because  it  failed  to  show  sufficient  respect  for 
the  rights  or  financial  interests  of  the  Church. 

74.  The  eighteenth  century  saw  the  Inquisition  discredited 
in  the  Spanish  peninsula,  but  it  was  still  formidable  for 
mischief  in  the  colonies,  both  Spanish  and  Portuguese.  It  was 
suppressed  by  Napoleon  when  he  entered  Madrid  (December 
1808).  It  was  re-established  at  the  Restoration  and  still  tried 
to  bite  ;  but,  even  in  Spain,  the  days  of  the  auto  da  fe  were 
over  by  then.  The  Inquisition  was  finally  abolished  by  Queen 
Christina  in  1834.  It  had  put  to  death  at  least  100,000 
persons  in  Spain  alone;  it  had  expelled  1,500,000,  and  had 
ruined  the  civilisation  of  that  noble  country. 

•  •  •  •  • 

75.  At  the  very  moment  when  the  capture  of  Granada  had 
assured  the  triumph  of  Christendom  in  Spain,  a  native  of  Genoa 
discovered  a  new  world  and  opened  it  to  Christianity.  The 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  conquerors  of  America  behaved  like 
bandits.  Peaceable  and  confiding  populations  were  ex- 
terminated,   root    and    branch.       Those    who    were    forcibly 

*  Voltaire. 


FROM  LUTHER  TO  THE  ENCYCLOPEDIA    147 

"  converted,"  vegetated  in  a  condition  often  more  cruel  than 
slavery.  The  Inquisition  was  installed  and  brought  about  a 
reign  of  terror.  In  the  East  Indies,  especially  at  Goa,  it  was 
no  less  murderous.  In  Rome,  warned  by  a  popular  outbreak  at 
the  death  of  Paul  IV.,  it  showed  itself  more  prudent.  Never- 
theless, on  February  17,  1600,  it  sent  to  the  stake  the  philo- 
sopher Giordano  Bruno,  the  opponent  of  Aristotle  and  partisan 
of  Copernicus,  who  had  been  handed  over  to  the  Holy  Office  by 
the  Inquisitors  of  Venice. 

76.  The  Roman  Inquisition  made  itself  both  odious  and 
ridiculous  by  its  two  prosecutions  of  Galileo.  As  early  as 
1616  the  opinion  of  Copernicus  on  the  movement  of  the  earth, 
revived  and  demonstrated  by  Galileo,  was  denounced  by  the 
Dominicans  as  inconsistent  with  the  story  of  Joshua,  who, 
according  to  the  Bible,  caused  the  sun  to  stand  still.  The 
Inquisition  declared  Galileo's  assertion  to  be  "  not  only  heretical 
in  faith,  but  absurd  as  philosophy.""  Galileo  bowled  to  this 
decision,  but  went  on  with  his  researches.  His  great  work, 
the  D'lalogo  di  Galileo  Gal'deiy  appeared  in  1632,  under  licence 
from  the  Inquisition  of  Florence.  Extremely  prudent  in  form, 
it  was  substantially  a  new  demonstration  of  the  system  of 
Copernicus.  The  upholder  of  the  opposite  system  was  made 
to  talk  learnedly  enough,  but  like  an  imbecile :  a  trick  which 
had  escaped  detection  by  the  good  Florentine  inquisitor. 
Urban  VIII.  referred  the  Dialogo  to  a  commission,  and  Galileo, 
nearly  seventy  years  old  and  weak  in  health,  had  to  travel  from 
Florence  to  Rome  to  appear  before  the  Inquisition.  At  a  sitting 
of  the  Congregation  of  the  Holy  Office  (June  16,  1633),  the 
Pope  decided  that  he  should  be  interrogated  "  even  under  threat 
of  torture."  Galileo  was  a  scholar  of  genius,  but  no  hero. 
When  thrown  into  prison  he  retracted  humbly,  on  his  knees. 
The  famous  saying,  "E  pur  si  muove"  (And  yet  it  does  move!) 
was  invented  for  him  by  a  wit,  130  years  later  (in  1761).  The 
system  of  Galileo  was  universally  admitted  in  the  eighteenth 
century;  but  it  was  not  until  September  11,  1822,  that  the 
Congregation  of  the  Inquisition  gave  a  licence  to  print  books 
teaching  the  true  movement  of  the  earth,  a  decision  approved 
a    fortnight  later  by  Pope  Pius  VH,     "  It  is  wrong  to  nurse 


148     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

an  eternal  suspicion  of  the  well-known  prudence  of  the  Roman 
congregations  on  account  of  a  single  blunder.  But  those  men 
of  little  faith  mentioned  by  the  Evangelist  are  very  numerous, 
and  they  still  instinctively  believe  that  what  has  happened 
once  can  happen  again.  And  this  dread,  this  proneness  to 
voluntary  or  involuntary  distrust,  is  a  lingering  consequence 
of  the  condemnation  of  Galileo."  ^  So  writes  an  honest 
apologist,  and  he  is  right :  but  are  the  men  of  little  faith 
wrong  ? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

L.  Ranke,  Deutsche  Geschichte  im  Zeitaltcr  der  Eeformation,  6  vols.,  1867- 
1868  ;  L.  Pastor,  Geschichte  der  Pdpste,  4  vols.,  1899-1907  (Kngl.  trans.) ;  Ward, 
Prothero  and  others,  Cambridge  Modern  History,  vol.  iii.,  1905  ;  Imbart  de  la 
Tour,  Les  Origines  de  la  Riforme  (1476-1520),  1905  ;  Lavisse  and  others, 
Histoirc  de  France,  vols,  v.,  vi.,  1904-1905  (the  Reformation  in  France); 
E.  Rodocanachi,  La  116 forme  en  ItaJie,  1920. 

6.  Art.  Luther  and  Siaupitz  in  Hauck  ;  H.  Grisar,  Liithcr,  1911  (hostile). 

11.  Art.  Exo7-cis7n  us  in  }ia,uck. 

12.  Art.  Karlstadt  and  Melancthon  in  Haiick. 

13.  J.  Martin,  Oustave  Vasa  et  la  il^forme  en  Suede,  1906. 

14—16.  Art.  Anahaptisten,  Augshurger  Bekentniss  and  Bauernkricg  in  Hauck. 

18.   Art.  Augshurger  Religions friede  in  Hauck. 

19-21.  Arts.  Zwingli  and  Calvin  in  Hauck  ;  A.  Bossert,  Calvin,  1906  ;  P. 
Paulsen,  Calvin,  1909. 

24-25.  G.  G.  Perry,  A  History  of  the  English  Church,  3  vols.,  1861-1864; 
Gasquet,  Edward  Vi.  and  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  1890  ;  H.  N.  Birt, 
The  Elizabethan  Religious  Settlement,  1908  ;  J.  Hungerford  Pollen,  The  English 
Catholics  in  the  Reign  of  Elizabeth,  1920;  E.  Jayklem,  Inlol.  in  the  Reign  of 
Elizabeth,  1917;  G.  O'Brien,  Economic  History  of  Ireland,  1919. 

26.  Skelton,  Mury  Stuart,  1893  ;  art.  Knox  in  Hauck  ;  Hassenkamp, 
Geschichte  Irlands,  1886. 

27.  Aguesse,  Histoire  de  V J^tablissement  du  protcstantisme  en  France,  2  vols. , 
1891  ;  F.  Buisson,  Sebastien  CasteUion,  2  vols.,  1893;  J.  Thomas,  Le  Concordat 
de  1516,  1910  ;  J.  Vi(5not,  Le  Paris  des  Martyrs,  1914. 

29.  M.  Philippson,  La  Contre-R4rolution  religinise  au  XVP""  sikle,  1884; 
L.  Ranke,  Die  romischcn  Pdpste  im  16ten  und  17ten  Jahrhundert,  9th  ed. ,  1889 
(English  translations)  ;  Ugo  Balzani,  Rome  under  Sixtus  V.  (in  Cambridge 
Modern  History),  vol.  iii.,  1905.— On  the  Confessional :  Lea,  Inqimilion  of  Spain, 
vol.  iv. ,  p.  96. 

30.  R.  Allier,  La  Cabale  des  Divots  (1627-1666),  1902  {cf.  R^belliau,  Rev. 
des  deux  Mundes,  1903).  — Catholic  revival,  chiefly  due  to  S.  Vincent  de  Paul: 
Rev.  hist.,  cxxxviii.,  p.  263. 

31.  See  the  prefaces  by  H.  Michel,  Bruneti^re,  &c.,  to  the  classic  editions 
of  the  Provinciales. — Art.  Kasuislik  in  Hauck  ;  Lejay,  Le  r6le  thdologiquc  de 
Saint-Cesaire  d' Aries,  1906. 

32.  Art.  Trienter  Konzil  in  Hauck. 

33.  The  reconquest  of  Poland  :  art.  Hosius  and  Polen  in  Hauck. — The 
Inquisition  in  Spanish  America :  Lea,  The  Inquisition  in  the  Spanish 
Dependencies,  1908. — Missions  to  India,  Japan  and  China:  Funck,  Kirch&n- 
geschichte,  p.  500. 

^  Vacandard,  Etudes  de  Critique,  1906,  p,  386. 


FROM   LUTHER  TO   THE   ENCYCLOPEDIA     149 

34.  Art.  Jemiienorden  iu  Hauck  ;  A.  Michel,  Les  Jdsuites,  1879  ;  Peyrat, 
La  Compagnie  de  Jims  (in  Histoire  et  Religion,  p.  86  et  seq) ;  Boehmer,  Les 
jisuiles,  transl.  by  Q.  Monod,  1910  ;  J.  Brucker,  La  Compagnie  de  J6sus,  1919  ; 
J.  B.  Herman,  La  pidagogic  des  jisuites,  1920. 

36.   Pfotenhauer,  Die  Missioncn  der  Jesuiien  in  Paraguay,  3  vols.,  1891- 

1893. 

38-39.  Forneron,  Histoire  de  Pfnlippe  11.,  4  vols.,  1880-1882;  Namfeche, 
rhiliiipe  IL  et  les  Pays-Bas,  4  vols.,  1886  ;  P.  J.  Blok,  Willem  de  Eerste,  1920. 

40.  Art.  Arminins  and  Reviojislranten  in  Hauck. 

41-42.  In  addition  to  the  great  histories  of  England  (Hume,  Gardiner, 
Green),  consult  Th.  Firth,  Oliver  Cromwell,  1900;  R.  Gardiner,  T/ie  Gun- 
j)oi.cder  Plot,  1897  ;  Peyrat,  La  rivolution  et  la  rcstauration  anglaisc  (in  Histoire 
ct  Religion,  p.  207);  Ethelr.  Taunton,  History  of  the  Jesuits  in  England,  1901. 

43.  Walker,  A  History  of  the  Congregational  Chirches  in  the  United  States, 
1894;'  R.  G.  Usher,   The  Pilgrims, 'l9\S;  art.  Kongregationalisten  in  Hauck 

(p.  684). 

44.  Cunningham,   The  Quakers,   1868;    Rufus  H.  Jones,    The  Story  of  G. 

Fox  1919. 

45.  Art.  Urban  VIII.  in  Hauck.  The  Pope's  brief  to  Ferdinand  II.  was 
first  published  in  1884. 

46.  Pietismus  and  Spencr  in  Hauck;  A.  Ritschl,  Ocschichie  des  Piclismus, 
3  vols.,  1880-1886. 

47.  Art,  Hosius,  Polcn,  and  Socin  in  Hauck. 

48.  Lavisse  and  others,  Histoire  de  Fra^u-e,  vols.  v.  and  ri.  ;  art.  Coligny 
in  La  France  Protestante  ;  H.  Hauser,  Etudes  sur  la  R6furme  fraw^aise,  1909  ; 
J.  Mariejol,  Cath.  de  MMicis,  1920 ;  L.  Romier,  Les  protestants  d  la  veille  des 
guerres  civiles,  in  Rev.  hist.,  cxxiv.  p.  1 ;  A.  Maury,  La  Saint- BartMlemy  (in 
Journ.  des  Savants,  1880,  p.  154) ;  Vacandard,  Les  Rapes  et  la  Saint-Barthi- 
lemy  (in  £tudes,  1906,  p.  217).  Recent  studies  on  that  subject:  Rev.  hist., 
cxxxvii.,  p.  87;  Rev.  du  XVI'  sikle,  1913,  p.  525. 

50.  The  medal,  of  which  there  is  an  example  in  the  Bibhothfeque  Nationale, 
was  engraved  in  tlie  Numismata  romanorum  pontificum  by  Bonanni  (vol.  i., 
p.  323).  On  the  face  is  a  portrait  of  Gregory  XIII.  ;  on  the  reverse,  the 
destroying  angel  smiting  the  Huguenots,  and  the  inscription  Ugonotor^im 
strages,  1572.  Vasari's  paintings  are  described  in  Lafenestre  and  Richten- 
berger,  Le  Vatican,  p.  136.  (Royal  Room.  Admiral  Coligny,  wounded  by 
an  arquebuse,  is  carried  into  his  house ;  murder  of  the  Admiral,  of  his  son-in- 
law,  Teligny,  and  his  servants ;  King  Charles  IX,  manifests  his  joy  at  the 
deed.)  "Thus,"  wrote  Stendhal,  "there  is  still  one  place  in  Europe  where 
murder  is  publicly  honoured."     Visitors  of  the  Vatican  have  no  access  to 

that  room. 

51.  Peyrat,  Henri  IV.  (in  Histoirt  et  Rdigion,  p.  374),  a  learned  and 
oiiginal  memoir;  art.  Nimes  in  Hauck. 

53-58.  F.  Puaux,  Les  pricurseurs  fran<;ais  de  la  tol^rarwc,  1884;  P.  Gachon, 
Priliminaires  de  la  Rirocation  en  Languedoc,  1899;  Les  di'fenseurs  de  la  souve- 
raineU  du  peuple  sous  Louis  XIV.,  1917;  the  same.  Rev.  hist.,  cxxix.,  1; 
cxxxvi.,  1 ;  cxxxvii,  1  (Camisards) ;  J.  Vii^not,  d  propos  de  F&nelon,  1910  (his 
former  intolerance) ;  Rebelliau,  Bossuet,  historicn  du  protestantisme,  1891 ; 
Crousle,  Bossuet  et  le  protestantisme,  2  vols.,  1894-1895  ;  Peyrat,  Bossuet  (in 
Histoire  et  Religion,  p.  1-44) ;  Gazier,  Bossuet  et  Louis  XIV.,  1914. 

55.  Orders  issued  by  the  minister  Louvois :  "  Let  there  be  as  much  disorder 
as  possible  ,  .  .  allow  the  soldiers  to  live  as  licentiously  as  they  choose  " 
(1685).  "Make  very  few  prisoners,  but  shoot  down  a  great  many  people; 
and  do  not  spare  the  women  any  more  than  the  men  "  (1687). 

59.  Voltaire,  Siech  de  Louis  XIV.,  excellent  edition  with  notes  by  E. 
Bourgeois,  1898, 

60-61.  Lang6nieux  and  Baudrillart,  La  France  chritienne  dans  V Histoire, 
1896;  G^rin,  Lo^ds  XIV.  et  le  Saint-Sikje,  2  vols,,  1894.— The  practical 
character  of  religious  Orders  in  the  seventeenth  century :  R.  Allier,  La 
Cabale  des  Divots,  1902,  p.  17.— On  Ranc6 :   Sainte-Beuve,  Verniers  Portraits, 


150     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

p.  414;  on  St.  Vincent  de  Paul :  E.  de  Broglie,  Saint  Vincent  de  Paul,  5th  ed. 
1899;  also  Re^\  hist.,  cxxxvii.,  p.  93;  cxxxviii.,  p.  260. 

62.  Sainte-Beuve,  Port  Royal,  6vola.,  1840-1862;  Fuzet,  Les  Jaiisdnistes  an 
XVIP""  sikle,  1876;  A.  Gazier,  Une  Suite  d  I'histoire  de  Port  Royal,  1908; 
A.  Hallays,  Le  PHerinagede  Port  Royal,  1909;  Strowski,  Le  Sentiment  religieux 
en  France  au  XVII""'  siede  (St.Fran9ois  de  Sales,  Pascal,  &c. ),  3  vols.,  1906-8 ; 
H.  Br^mond,  Histoire  dii  setitiment  religieux  en  France,  1917  and  foil.  ;  Sech^, 
Les  derniem  Jans6nistes,  2  vols.,  1891. — On  the  French  free-thinkers  of  the 
seventeenth  century :  F.  T.  Perrens,  Les  Lihertins,  1887 ;  Brunetifere,  La 
Philosophie  de  Moliere  (in  ^tudet  critiques,  4th  series) ;  F.  Lach^vre,  Le 
libertinage  au  XVII'  sikle,  1920. 

63-69.  A.  Le  Roy,  Le  gallicanisme  et  labulle  Unigenitus,  1892. — J.  Turmel, 
Histoire  de  la  (hMogie  positive  du  Concile  de  Trente  ate  Concile  du  Vatican, 
1906  (learned  and  lucid). — A.  de  Meyer,  Premieres  controverses  jansinistes, 
1917. 

68.  Napoleon,  hearing  that  there  were  Jansenists  in  the  Lyonnais  in  1803, 
ordered  them  to  be  evicted  and  even  imprisoned  ;  he  had  no  liking,  he  wrote, 
"  for  lunatics  allied  to  the  sect  of  convulsionaries  "  {Revue  d^ Histoire  de  Lyon, 
1905,  p.  431). 

70.  E.  de  Broglie,  F6nelon  d  Camlrai,  1884. 

71.  C.  T,  Upham,  Madame  Ouyon,  1905 ;  M.  Masson,  Fdnelon  et  Madame 
Guyon,  1907  {cf.  Edinburgh  Reviev),  April  1908);  E.  Seilliere,  Finelon  ct 
M""  Guyon,  1920.— On  Fenelon:  Sainte-Beuve,  Lundis,  vol.  ii.,  p.  5,  and  vol.  x. , 
p.  16  ;  A.  Delplanque,  F6nelon  et  la  doctrine  de  V amour  jntr,  1907. 

72-74.  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisiticm,  in  Spain,  4  vols.,  190(3—1907;  see 
also  S.  Reinach,  Cultes,  vol.  iii.,  p.  472.— The  Inquif3ition  and  the  Jews: 
S.  Reinach,  Cultes,  vol.  ii.,  p.  401;  E.  Adler,  Auto  de  fi  and  Jew,  1908;  art. 
hi qiiisition  in  the  Jewish  Encyclopa:d.ia ;  E.  Vacandard,  L^ Inquisition,  1907; 
Lea,  The  Moriscos  in  Spain,  1901  {cf.  Morel-Fatio,  Rev.  Hist.  Relig.,  1902, 
vol.  xlv. ,  p.  113,  an  apology  for  the  Inquisition). 

75.  Lea,  The  Inquisition  in  the  Sjmnish  Depemlermes,  1908. — Bartholom^s, 
O.  Bruno,  2  vols.,  1847;  Plumptree,  Life  and  Works  of  Giordano  Bruno, 
2  vols.,  1884;  W.  Boulting,  G.  Bruno,  1917. 

76.  Vacandard,  GaliUe  (in  Etudes,  1906,  p.  292). 


CHAPTER   V 

CHRISTIANITY  :    FROM    THE    ENCYCLOPEDIA    TO    THE 
CONDEMNATION    OF    MODERNISM 

From  the  sixteenth  to  the  twentieth  century :  Emancipation  of  thought  and 
reaction— Persistence  of  religious  feeling  in  France  in  the  eighteenth 
century— The  Encyclopfedia- The  Philosophers— Voltaire  s  hostility  to 
Christianity— "jS?cr«so7is  Vwfdme  "— Galas.- Expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  from 
France  and  Portugal :  Suppression  of  the  Order— Secularisation  of  Church 
property  by  the  National  Assembly-The  Civil  Constitution  of  the 
clergy— Public  worship  impeded  by  the  Convention— The  Goddess  of 
Reason — The  Theophilanthropists.  ,     -n     x-  <. 

Revivals  in  Protestant  countries  :  Sects— Sects  in  Scotland— Jiaptists— 
Methodists— Darby ites  and  Irvingites- Christian  Scientists— 1  he  iiritish 
Israelites— Tractarianism,  Puseyism,  Ritualism— The  Unitarians. 
Liberty  of  worship  in  the  United  States— The  Mormons. 
Joseph  II.  and  the  Catholic  reaction  in  Austria— Protestantism  in 
Austria— Sects  in  Russia:  persecution  of  the  Poles  and  the  Uniates 
— Mine,   de  Kriidener.  ,  ,  .,  ,, 

Catholic  revival  under  the  Directory— The  Concordat  and  its  results- 
Reaction  begun  by  Pius  VII.  continued  by  Pius  IX  -The  Syllabus  and  the 
Vatican  Council-End  of  the  temporal  power-The  reaction  in  French 
literature :  Chateaubriand,  Ronald,  J.  de  Maistre  and  their  successors- 
Liberal  Catholicism  :  Lamennais,  Lacordaire,  Montalembert— The  political 
reaction  in  France  :  the  White  Terror,  the  Congregation,  the  Law  o 
Sacrilege— Religious  indifference— Freedom  of  teaching  and  the  loi 
FaS-B,e\igioxxs  affairs  under  Napoleon  IIL-The  clerical  reactions 
afterTsTl-Boulangism-Anti-Semitism-The  Dreyfus  affair-Separation 

of  Church  and  State-French  Protestantism-Switzerland :  War  of  the 
Sonderbund-The  Jesuits  since  1814;  their  influence  m  France  and  the 
Catholic  world  generally-The  German  "Old  Calholics"-H.  Loyson- 
?lcy  of  Leo  X'lll.-Pius  X.-The  Sacr^  CcBur,  La  Salette,  Lourdes- 
The  Church  and  mysticism-Mediums-Condemnation  of  spintualism- 
The  Neo-Buddhists— The  Freemasons— The  Church  and  Socialism. 
"^^  Religious  philosophy:  Schleiermacher,  Vmet-Evohitionary  Catho^ 
licisra- Americanism-Modernism-Foreign  Missions-The  Chuich  and 
Slavery— The  Church  and  the  upper  classes. 

1.  The  sixteenth  century  saw  the  development  of  the  critical 
spirit  and  the  breaking  down  of  Roman  despotism  in  Europe. 
The  seventeenth  century  was  almost  universally  a  period  of 
reaction  towards  the  principle  of  authority.  The  eighteenth 
century  took  up  the  work  of  the  sixteenth,  and  freed  the  human 
intellect  from  its  shackles.  Kings  philosophised  and  philosophers 
reigned.     The  Order  of  Jesus  was   abolished  by  the  Papacy 

151 


152     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

itself.  The  Inquisition  became  ridiculous,  and  hid  itself  to  die. 
Under  the  stimulus  of  progressive  science,  liberty  of  thought 
made  definitive  conquests  among  the  enlightened  classes.  Un- 
happily it  was  not  realised  that  these  classes  were  not  very 
numerous.  In  default  of  a  sufficient  provision  for  lay  teaching, 
the  great  majority  of  men  remained  ignorant  and  superstitious. 
The  French  Revolution  put  influence  and  power  in  the  hands  of 
a  class  unprepared  for  their  use.  The  result,  both  in  France 
and  elsewhere,  was  the  reaction  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a 
reaction  which  Avas  Catholic  in  one  place,  Calvinist  or  Pietist  in 
another,  Greek  Orthodox  in  a  third.  To  twentieth-century 
France  belongs  the  honour  of  renewing  the  march  towards 
complete  liberty,  in  her  attempts  to  laicise  society  by  the 
separation  of  Church  and  State. 

•  •  •  •  • 

2.  Eighteenth-century  France  must  not  be  looked  for  only 
in  the  salons  of  Paris  and  Versailles,  in  the  courts  of  Frederick 
the  Great  and  Voltaire.  The  country  as  a  whole  remained 
profoundly  Catholic,  with  a  tendency  towards  Jansenism  in  the 
upper  classes,  especially  among  the  magistrates,  the  so-called 
noblesse  de  la  robe.  Atheistic  cardinals  were  to  be  found  at 
Versailles,  frivolous  and  sceptical  abbes  abounded.  But  the 
clergy,  the  magistracy,  and  the  tiers  etat  included  even  then  a 
mass  of  austere  Catholics  intent  upon  working  out  their  salva- 
tion, and  a  still  much  greater  mass  of  the  intellectually  deficient, 
in  whom  the  religion  of  the  Middle  Ages  survived.  The  latter 
formed,  so  to  speak,  the  reserves  of  the  nation.  When  these 
were  called  to  political  and  social  action,  medieval  ideas  re- 
appeared on  the  surface,  and  brought  about  a  reaction  which 
still  endures. 

3.  The  Encyclopaedia  began  to  appear  in  1751.  Voltaire 
was  its  soul,  from  his  secure  retreat,  Les  Delices,  and  afterwards 
at  Ferney.  But  Diderot,  the  most  universal  of  all  men  of 
letters,  was  its  mainspring  for  twenty  years,  in  spite  of  all  the 
thunders  of  the  clergy  and  the  severities  of  the  Parliament. 
The  manifesto  of  the  Encyclopaedia  was  d'Alembert's  excellent 
preface  on  the  classification  of  our  knowledge.  The  articles  on 
theology,  from  the  pens  of  liberal  priests,  are  irreproachable  in 


FROM   ENCYCLOPAEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     153 

tone,  although  hostile  enough  to  the  pretensions  of  the  Papacy. 
But  the  irreligious  tendency  of  the  compilation  as  a  whole  is 
clearly  shown  by  the  articles  on  philosophy.  These  are  chiefly 
from  the  pen  of  Diderot  himself,  a  materialist  and  atheist. 

4.  Not  all  the  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
above  reproach.  D'Alembert  was  the  best  and  most  trust- 
worthy. Voltaire,  for  all  his  genius,  was  a  buffoon,  not  over- 
delicate  in  money  matters,  sycophantic  to  the  great,  and 
contemptuous  of  the  masses.  Montesquieu  had  some  of  the 
pettinesses  of  a  provincial  judge  and  shov/s  an  over-weening 
conceit  in  his  writings ;  Diderot  was  a  kindly  Bohemian,  rather 
destitute  of  manners  and  morals ;  Rousseau  was  set  against  the 
philosophers  by  jealousy  and  against  reason  by  vanity.  But  all 
these  men  had  one  admirable  quality — their  love  of  humanity. 
They  wished  to  shine,  but  still  more  to  serve.  Their  intellectual 
activity  had  a  practical  object,  to  destroy  prejudices  and  better 
man's  lot ;  so  we  must  forgive  them  much. 

5.  To  understand  the  spirit  in  which  the  Encyclopaedists 
really  worked,  we  should  read  Voltaire's  correspondence  with 
d'Alembert.  The  latter  had  to  be  prudent.  He  lived  by  his 
pen,  in  Paris,  where  he  had  been  a  member  of  the  Academic  des 
Sciences  ever  since  he  was  twenty-three.  "  Fear  of  the  stake," 
he  wrote  to  Voltaire,  "is  cooling  to  the  blood"  (July  31,  1762). 
But  Voltaire  was  rich  ;  he  was  a  member  of  the  King's  house- 
hold {gentilhomme  de  la  Chamh-e) ;  he  reigned  both  at  Ferney 
and  to  some  extent  in  every  capital  in  Europe ;  he  never  ceased 
to  spur  into  the  fight  those  who  were  to  feel  the  blows  he 
himself  had  earned.  His  letters  breathe  an  anti-Christian  rage 
which  d'Alembert  did  nothing  to  combat  in  his  replies,  because 
as  a  fact  he  shared  it.  Voltaire  writes  :  "  It  is  a  good  tree,  say 
the  devout  rascals,  which  has  produced  bad  fruit.  But  as  it  has 
produced  so  much,  doesn't  it  deserve  to  be  thrown  into  the 
fire  ?  Light  one  then,  you  and  your  friends,  and  make  your- 
selves as  hot  as  you  can  "  (November  28,  1762).  Clearly,  here 
he  is  concerned  with  Christianity,  not  with  fanaticism.  "  Yet  a 
little  time  and  I  daresay  all  these  books  will  not  be  wanted ; 
the  human  race  may  have  sense  enough  to  understand  of  itself 
that  three  do  not  make  one,  and  that  a  piece  of  bread  is  not 


154     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

God.  Even  now  the  enemies  of  reason  cut  a  silly  figure  enough  " 
(March  31,  1762).  "I  can  see  from  here  the  Jansenists  dying 
a  natural  death  twelve  months  hence,  after  killing  the  Jesuits 
this  year;  I  can  see  toleration  established,  the  Protestants 
recalled,  priests  married,  the  confession  abolished,  and  fanaticism 
crushed  as  a  matter  of  course"  (May  4,  1762).  "Many  a 
fanatical  group  may  kick  against  it,  but  reason  will  triumph,  at 
least  among  the  better  sort ;  as  for  the  rabble,  reason  is  not  for 
them  "  (February  4, 1757).  "  Our  business  is  not  to  prevent  our 
lackeys  from  going  to  Mass  or  preachings ;  it  is  to  snatch  fathers 
of  families  from  the  tyranny  of  impostors''  (December  6, 1757). 

6.  Such  quotations  might  be  multiplied  almost  indefinitely  ; 
they  show  how  much  we  restrict  the  role  of  Voltaire  in  making 
him  an  apostle  of  toleration,  a  term  which  implies  a  certain 
complaisance  of  truth  towards  error.  Voltaire  demanded  legal 
toleration  because  that  represented  progress  at  a  time  when 
Calas  and  the  Chevalier  de  la  Barre  died,  the  victims  of  religious 
bigotry.  But  his  ambition  went  much  further.  He  dreamt  of 
the  abolition,  even  by  violence,  of  positive  religions  as  impos- 
tures, at  least  in  those  well-to-do  and  enlightened  classes  which 
alone  excited  his  interest.  In  his  hatred  of  fanaticism  he 
became  intolerant  himself. 

7.  Many  of  Voltaire's  letters  end  with  '•'■  £,cr.  Tmf.'" 
{Ecrasons  Tinfame:  Crush  the  infamous  thing  !).  A  comparison 
of  texts  leaves  no  doubt  that  by  Tmfame  Voltaire  meant  not 
only  fanaticism  and  superstition,  but  Christianity.  He  was, 
or  called  himself,  a  deist.  But  the  God  of  Voltaire  was  a  prop 
of  the  social  system.  He  was  a  Dieu-gendarme — a  policeman- 
God  ! — like  that  of  the  right-thinking  middle  classes  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  a  God  to  be  imposed  on  the  lower  orders, 
without  any  thought  of  loving  or  pleasing  Him  oneself.  There 
is  more  honesty  and  frankness  in  the  atheism,  otherwise  dull 
enough,  of  Diderot  or  even  of  the  Baron  d'Holbach.  As  for 
the  God  of  Rousseau,  he  was  in  the  main  a  mere  text  for 
declamation.  But  Rousseau's  God,  who  identifies  himself  alter- 
nately with  the  beneficence  of  Nature  and  the  rigour  of  the 
moral  laws,  is  thoroughly  impregnated  with  the  spii'it  of  the 
Bible.     If  no   longer  Christian,  he  might   become   so   again, 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     155 

Rousseau's  eloquent  and  sentimental  deism  leads  to  the  eloquent 
and  sentimental  Catholicism  of  Chateaubriand.  The  Calvinistic 
Jean-Jacques  thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  Catholic  reaction 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  after  corrupting  the  Revolution  with 
his  sophistry.  For  it  was  in  his  name  that  the  Revolution  was 
made,  and  rather  ill  made.  Voltaire,  who  was  little  read 
between  1789  and  1815,  would  have  inspired  it  better. 

8.  The  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  was  never  repealed 
under  the  ancien  regime.  As  late  as  1762  a  pastor  was  con- 
demned to  death  for  having  preached.  It  was  only  in  1787, 
two  years  before  the  Revolution,  that  Protestants  were  admitted 
to  civil  rights  {etat  civil)  and  that  their  children  ceased  to  be 
considered  illegitimate.  Philosophy  had  something  to  do  with 
this  change.  It  had  undertaken,  through  the  mouth  of  Voltaire, 
the  posthumous  defence  of  Calas,  the  Protestant  who  had  been 
broken  on  the  wheel  at  Toulouse,  1762,  for  having,  it  was 
asserted,  killed  a  son  who  wished  to  abjure  Calvinism.  In 
reality  the  young  man  had  committed  suicide.  Voltaire  de- 
manded the  rehabilitation  of  the  innocent  victim,  and  was 
seconded  in  his  honourable  task  by  the  "  intellectuals "  of  his 
time,  as  well  as  by  the  upper  classes  of  society.  In  1765,  three 
years  after  Calas  had  suffered,  his  efforts  were  crowned  with 
success.  A  century  later,  it  took  ten  years  to  bring  about  the 
rehabilitation  of  Alfred  Dreyfus. 

9.  Although  the  Jesuits  had  shown  themselves  tyrannical, 
seditious,  and  greedy  ever  since  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  suppression  of  the  Order 
in  the  eighteenth  century  was  brought  about  by  the  basest 
intrigues  and  calumny.  Having  taken  to  trade,  like  the 
Templars  of  old,  they  had  become  very  rich.  The  trade  with 
South  America  and  with  India  was  partly  in  their  hands. 
Their  wealth  awoke  the  cupidity  of  Sebastian  Pombal,  Prime 
Minister  and  more  or  less  Viceroy  of  Portugal.  He  accused 
them  of  conspiring  against  the  State  (1757),  confiscated  their 
property,  and  burnt  one  of  them  alive.  This  was  the  old 
visionary,  Malagrida,  whose  trial  was  conducted  by  the  docile 
Inquisition. 


156     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

10.  In  France  a  great  many  families  were  ruined  by  the 
failure  of  a  commercial  house  intimately  connected  with  the 
Jesuits.  In  this  the  Parliament  saw  an  opportunity  for  in- 
dulging its  Jansenist  rancour.  Strong  in  the  support  of  Choiseul 
and  of  Madame  de  Pompadour,  whom  one  of  the  king's  Jesuit 
confessors  had  offended,  it  instituted  an  inquiry  into  the  affairs 
of  the  Order  and  obtained  its  suppression.  This,  however, 
Pope  Clement  XIII.  was  not  inclined  to  ratify.  The  example 
of  France  was  soon  followed  by  Spain,  where  the  Order  had 
fallen  under  suspicion  with  the  king  and  the  Inquisition.  A 
new  Pope,  Clement  XIV.,  accepted  the  inevitable  and  declared 
that  the  Order  no  longer  met  the  needs  of  the  time.  He 
suppressed  it  in  1773. 

11.  Some  of  the  fugitive  Jesuits  Avere  welcomed  at  Ferney. 
Educated  by  the  Jesuits,  Voltaire  had  kindly  feelings  towards 
his  masters,  and  displayed  them  in  his  own  fashion.  But  he 
disgraced  his  pen  by  scandalous  jests  at  the  hapless  Malagrida, 
the  innocent  victim  of  Pombal's  tyranny. 

12.  During  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
philosophers  frequently  demanded  the  secularisation,  in  other 
words,  the  confiscation,  of  Church  property,  which  was  valued 
at  several  milliards. i  This  the  National  Assembly  decreed 
(November  2,  1789),  but  at  the  same  time  it  voted  an  annual 
contribution  in  return  for  what  the  nation  received.  Such  was 
the  origin  of  the  Budget  des  Cultes  (Public  Worship  Budget). 
On  July  12,  1790,  the  Assembly  went  still  further,  imposing 
on  the  clergy  the  ConstHution  Civile,  inspired  by  the  most 
radical  ideas  of  Gallicanism.  The  Church  was,  in  their  opinion, 
a  part  of  the  State,  subject  to  reform  like  all  other  institutions. 
But  in  acting  on  these  lines  the  deputies  ignored  the  Pope's 
authority,  taking  from  him  the  right  to  institute  bishops,  and 
making  the  functions  of  the  clergy  elective.  This  was  the  end 
of  the  Concordat  of  1516.  The  Assembly  required  that  all 
ecclesiastics  should  pledge  themselves  by  oath  to  accept  the 
Civil  Constitution.  The  Pope,  Pius  VI.,  sternly  objected, 
though  many  bishops  agreed  (March- April  1791),  and  from  that 

1  A  milliard  of  francs  equals  forty  million  pounds  sterling. 


FROM  ENCYCLOPEDIA  TO   MODERNISM    157 

time  the  clergy  were  divided  into  assermentes  or jureurs  (jurors) 
on  the  one  hand,  and  insermentes  or  refractalres  (non-jurors)  on 
the  other.  The  latter  were  soon  compelled  to  celebrate  Mass 
in  secret,  in  buildings  of  their  own,  often  in  stables  or  barns. 
Although  less  cruelly  molested  than  the  Protestants  after  the 
Revocation,  they  were  persecuted  in  the  same  spirit ;  so  true  is 
it  that  toleration  is  not  to  be  learnt  in  a  school  of  persecution. 

13.  The  Convention  took  a  great  stride  in  advance.  Though 
it  did  not  actually  suppress  Catholic  worship  and  did  proclaim 
religious  freedom,  it  gave  no  pecuniary  aid  to  the  Church,  and 
failed  to  protect  the  priests  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties. 
Many  were  put  to  death  ;  churches  were  looted  and  art  treasures 
wantonly  destroyed.  For  the  space  of  about  two  years, 
Catholicism  was  almost  abolished  in  a  great  part  of  the  country. 
The  Abbe  Gregoire,  one  of  the  bishops  who  had  taken  the  oath, 
and  had  distinguished  himself  by  his  noble  efforts  for  the 
emancipation  of  the  Jews  and  the  abolition  of  negro  slavery  in 
the  colonies,  protested  in  the  name  of  Christian  tradition  and 
liberty,  but  in  vain.  The  Bishop  of  Paris,  who  had  also  taken 
the  oath,  came  to  the  bar  of  the  Convention  to  lay  down  his 
insignia.  A  new  calendar,  with  purely  civic  festivals  and  a  day 
of  rest  every  ten  days,  was  inforced  (1793-1805).  Inverted 
fanatics,  who  could  not  live  without  some  form  of  worship, 
founded  in  Paris  that  of  the  Goddess  of  Reason  (November  10, 
1793).  The  new  goddess  was  impersonated  by  an  actress  from 
the  Opera.  She  was  received  with  great  pomp  at  the  Convention, 
the  members  joining  the  people  in  escorting  her  to  the  Temple 
of  Reason  (Notre-Dame),  and  in  singing  the  hymn  to  Liberty. 
These  buffooneries  were  imitated  in  other  sections  of  the  capital, 
where  Temples  of  Reason  rapidly  multiplied.  Robespierre, 
bitten  by  Rousseau's  deism  and  intolerance,  caused  the  Conven- 
tion to  decree  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being  and  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  The  terms  of  this  decree  were  affixed 
to  the  Temple  of  Reason  (May  1794). 

14.  The  sect  of  TheopMlanthropists  was  not  long  in  making 
its  appearance.  "Friends  of  God  and  Man,"  they  pretended  to 
supersede  all  religions  by  a  belief  founded  upon  morality  alone. 
Protected  by  a  member  of  the  Directory,  Larevelliere-Lepeaux, 


158     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

who  thought  himself  a  pontiff,  and  acted  as  such,  they  had 
eighteen  churches  in  Paris  at  their  disposal  (1797).  Their 
services  were  carried  on  by  the  members  in  turn :  they  consisted 
of  moral  sermons  and  French  chants  and  hymns.  The  sect  made 
a  certain  headway  in  Paris,  but  as  it  came  under  suspicion  of 
Jacobinism,  the  Consuls  deprived  it  of  the  churches  in  October 
1801,  and  the  Theophilanthropists  disappeared  after  a  some- 
what ludicrous  existence  of  about  five  years. 

•  •  •  •  • 

15.  The  strides  made  by  free-thought,  materialism,  and 
atheism  in  the  eighteenth  century  excited,  in  Protestant 
countries,  those  reactions  which  are  called  revivals.  They  are 
generally  characterised  by  mysticism,  and  by  fantastic  inter- 
pretations of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  These  movements  have 
taken  place  chiefly  in  England  and  the  United  States,  where 
they  continued  during  the  nineteenth  century.  But  Germany, 
Switzerland,  and  Holland  have  had  them  too,  especially  after 
the  political  reaction  of  1815.  In  England  and  America, 
revivals  have  led  to  the  creation  of  new  sects,  for  which  party 
struggles  and  encroachments  of  the  temporal  domain  on  the 
spiritual  have  also  furnished  occasions. 

16.  Although  the  Presbyterian  system  implies  the  election 
of  clergy  by  the  congregations,  a  right  of  patronage,  or  nomina- 
tion of  parochial  clergy  by  the  Crown  or  over-lord,  existed  in 
Scotland  as  an  abuse,  and  was  confirmed  by  an  Act  of  the 
British  Parliament  in  1712.  This  brought  about  a  first  dis- 
ruption in  1733,  when  a  minister  at  Stirling,  one  Ebenezer 
Erskine,  founded  a  body  known  as  the  Reformed  PrcshyteHans. 
In  1843  a  second  disruption  gave  rise  to  the  Free  Church  of 
Scotland.  The  greater  Disi'uption  took  place  in  1847.  The 
reformed  communities,  which  had  greatly  increased,  assumed 
the  name  of  the  United  Presbyterian  Church,  to  distinguish 
them  from  the  Established  Church  of  Scotland.  In  1874 
Parliament  finally  abolished  patronage,  and,  in  1900,  the  Free 
Church  and  the  United  Presbyterians  amalgamated  to  form  the 
United  Free  Church.  A  small  minority  of  the  Free  Church 
ministers  were  hostile  to  this  fusion,  and  contested  its  legality. 
They  established  their  claims  to  the  whole  property  of  their 


FROM  ENCYCLOPEDIA  TO  MODERNISM     159 

Church,  bringing  about  new  difficulties  which  were,  however, 
happily   arranged.     The    Scottish    Churches  do  not   differ   in 
doctrine.     They   have    a    creed    in    common,   known    as    the 
Westminster  Confesshn  (1647),  the  Calvinistic  rigours  of  which 
have  been  softened  by  the  Declaratory  Acts  of  1879  and  1892, 
17.  Baptist  sects,  which  have  been  erroneously  supposed  to 
have  their  roots  in  the  Christianity  of  Roman  Britain,  appeared 
in  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.     Like 
the   Afenno?iites,    disciples  of  the   Dutchman   Simonis    Menno 
(t  1559),  who  were  scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  Anabaptists, 
the  early  Baptists  condemned  the  baptism  of  infants,  the  taking 
of  oaths,  and  military  service.     Their  distinctive  rite  is  baptism 
by  total  immersion,  which  is  received   by  adults  only.     The 
poet    Milton   has  been   claimed   by  this  sect,  to  which  John 
Bunyan,  author  of  the  Pll^im's  Progress,  who  spent  ten  years 
in  prison  under  Charles  II.,  certainly  belonged.i     The  Baptists 
have   enjoyed   toleration    ever   since    1689,  and   have   greatly 
increased   in    numbers    in    Germany,    the    United   States,   and 
elsewhere.     They  number  350,000  in  England,  four  millions  in 
the  United  States.     They  keep  up  important  foreign  missions, 
especially  in  Africa  and  Asia.     The  Baptists  have  no  bishops. 
Their   officers  are  elders  elected  by  the   communities,  doctors 
entrusted    with    preaching,    and    servitors    or    deacons.     The 
Baptists  are  perhaps  the  only  Christian  sect  in  which  a  Christian 
of  the  year  100  would  not  find  himself  out  of  place. 

18.  More  than  thirty  millions  of  Protestants  call  themselves 
Methodists  to-day.  This  great  sect  was  founded  in  England 
about  the  year  1740  by  an  eloquent  and  energetic  Puritan,  John 
Wesley  (11791),  with  the  help  of  his  brother  Charles  and  his 
friend  Whitefield  (tl770),  who  preached  more  than  18,000 
sermons.  At  first  their  one  aim  was  to  bring  about  a  revival  in 
the  Anglican  Church  by  the  reading  of  the  Bible,  by  regularity 
of  religious  observance,  and  by  the  purification  of  the  moral  life. 
The  name  MetJwdists,  which  occurs  as  early  as  1639,  desig- 
nated a  school  of  preachers  who  taught  a  metliod  of  reaching 

m^nVSLlTT'''  f"  '.'irregular  and  defective  Baptist."  Like  Bunyan  and 
™n  of  Nnn^^'T  '^":'''  °J  ^'^  ^^"'«  '^^  belonged  rather  to  that  independent 
R  Hoflif,nl  °?"'^'  ""^^  '^"'"  "^i'h^^  Presbyterians  nor  Anglicans.  See 
K.  Hofmann  s  article,  Baptisten,  in  Hauck,  p.  387. 


160    A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

happiness  through  virtue.  While  directing  most  of  its  attention 
to  preaching,  practised  by  laymen  as  well  as  ministers,  the 
Methodists  fostered  the  creation  of  religious  societies,  which 
became  the  centres  of  propaganda.  Methodism  offers  certain 
analogies  with  German  Pietism,  but,  unlike  the  latter,  it 
addresses  itself  to  the  masses,  which  it  desires  to  educate 
religiously  and  morally.  The  great  meetings  of  the  sect  have 
been  occasionally  discredited  by  a  touch  of  convulsionary  charla- 
tanism, but,  on  the  whole,  they  have  been  powerful  instruments 
of  evangelisation  and  conversion.  The  Methodist  missions, 
which  have  now  spread  themselves  all  over  the  globe,  dispose  of 
a  huge  annual  revenue. 

19.  Since  1797  the  Methodists  have  been  divided  into 
various  sects — the  Wesleyans,  the  B'lhle  Christians,  &c. — which 
are  separated  by  but  slight  shades  of  difference  in  opinions. 
The  rupture  with  the  Anglican  Church,  which  John  Wesley 
did  his  best  to  avoid,  Avas  gradually  brought  about  towards 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  Methodists  of  to-day 
form  a  dissenting  Church,  which  governs  itself  through  its 
Conference,  and  possesses  a  hierarchy  composed  of  both  clerics 
and  laymen. 

20.  Introduced  into  New  York  in  1768,  Methodism  was 
rapidly  extended  by  the  missionary  vigour  of  Whitefield.  It 
attracted  most  of  the  negroes,  who  constituted  independent 
communities.  It  is  to  the  honour  of  the  American  Methodists 
that  they  protested  against  negro  slavery  as  early  as  1784. 
The  sect  multiplied  even  more  rapidly  in  America  than  in 
England,  but  its  principles  everywhere  remained  the  same : 
it  was  above  all  a  revivalist  and  missionary  Church.  The 
Methodist  Missions  of  the  United  States  spend  ^280,000  a 
year,  and  own  a  fixed  capital  estimated  at  more  than  a  million 
sterling. 

21.  The  dry  formalism  into  which  the  Anglican  Church  had 
sunk  in  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  provoked  the 
formation  of  yet  another  sect,  the  Plymouth  Brethren.  These 
were  joined  in  1831  by  the  Anglican  priest,  John  Darby,  from 
whom  the  Plymouthists  are  generally  known  as  Darhystes,  or 
Darbyites,  on  the  Continent.    The  sect  was  really  an  association 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA  TO   MODERNISM     161 

of  brothers,  because  the  Holy  Spirit,  they  said,  was  "  essentially 
the  Spirit  of  Unity."  This  opened  the  way  to  prophesying  at 
large,  and  to  all  the  evils  of  individualism  in  religion.  The 
Plymouth  Brethren,  in  their  various  subdivisions,  have  spread 
all  over  Western  Europe  and  Noi'th  America. 

22.  Darby,  about  the  year  1826,  encountered  some  of  the 
disciples  of  Edward  Irving  (tl834),  a  Scottish  minister  who 
prophesied  the  end  of  the  world,  and  the  Second  Coming  of 
Christ  in  glory.  In  1832,  after  all  kinds  of  absurdities,  Irving 
founded  a  Church,  and  in  order  to  preserve  the  prophetic 
enthusiasm  of  his  followers,  instituted  a  hierarchy  inspired  by 
St.  Paul,  which  alone  had  authority  to  talk  the  official  nonsense. 
The  most  extraordinary  thing  about  this  particular  mystification 
is  that  its  effects  have  been  permanent.  There  are  from  seven  to 
eight  thousand  members  of  the  Catholic  Apostolic  Church  (as 
the  Irvingites  call  their  community)  in  the  British  Empire, 
twenty-five  thousand  in  Prussia  and  Bavaria,  with  many  more  in 
Holland  and  even  in  Java.  They  have  tacitly  abandoned  some 
of  the  follies  which  attended  their  foundation,  but  they  still 
cultivate  prophecy  and  await  in  joyous  confidence  the  Second 
Coming  of  their  Lord. 

23.  England  and  the  United  States  of  America  contain 
more  than  100,000  members  of  a  sect  founded  in  Boston  about 
1880,  which  calls  itself  the  Church  of  Christ  Scientist.  Its 
founder  was  a  certain  Mary  Baker  Eddy,  and  its  chief  propa- 
gandists have  been  enthusiastic  women.  It  pretends  to  cure  all 
sorts  of  illness  with  no  remedies  but  suggestion  and  meditation. 
The  suggestion  is  not  hypnotic.  It  is  simply  the  assertion, 
repeated  until  conviction  is  produced,  that  all  disease  is 
imaginary.  Christian  Scientists  are  found  also  in  France  and 
Germany,  where,  as  well  as  in  England,  they  have  been  prose- 
cuted for  illegally  acting  as  doctors.  Christian  Scientists  deny 
that  they  are  occultists  or  even  mystics.  But  the  fact  that  they 
ascribe  a  practical  efficiency  to  their  curative  formulae  oblio-es 
us  to  give  them  a  place,  which  they  by  no  means  solicit,  in  the 
modern  history  of  magic. 

24.  The  idea  that  America  was  colonised  by  Jewish  refugees, 
in  very  ancient  times,  is  an  illusion  older  than   Mormonism. 

M 


162     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

A  large  number  of  people  still  exist,  both  in  England  and  the 
United  States,  who  believe  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  be  identical 
with  the  lost  tribes  of  Israel,  the  ten  tribes  who  never  returned 
to  Judcsa  after  their  Babylonian  captivity.  An  itinerary  has 
even  been  traced  for  them  !  According  to  this  they  moved 
along  the  valley  of  the  Danube  to  Demnailt  (countries  of  the 
tribe  of  Dan).  God  promised  Israel  that  she  should  reign 
over  the  nations.  God  cannot  lie.  The  Anglo-Saxons  are  the 
strongest  race  in  the  world  :  therefore  the  Anglo-Saxons  are  the 
descendants  of  Israel !  I  myself  heard  this  doctrine  preached  at 
Brighton  in  the  open  air,  by  a  man  of  venerable  appearance 
who  seemed  to  believe  what  he  said. 

•  •  •  •  ■ 

25.  The  established  Anglican  Church,  with  the  king  for  its 
head,  is  Calvinist  in  spirit,  Romanist  in  form.  Putting  Rome 
aside  in  matters  dogmatic,  she  has  preserved,  or  at  least  imitated, 
the  Roman  hierarchy.  Her  declaration  of  faith  is  contained  in 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles  promulgated  by  Elizabeth.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  she  had  all  the  faults  of  a 
rich  and  powerful  institution.  She  was  governed  by  formalism, 
and  all  warmth  of  piety  was  smothered  under  external  correct- 
ness. The  other  Protestant  sects — Presbyterians,  Methodists, 
Baptists — made  up  the  great  body  of  Nonconformists  or  Dis- 
senters. With  them  the  Calvinistic  traditions  were  undiluted 
by  borrowings  from  the  Catholic  hierarchy. 

26.  In  1661  and  again  in  1673,  fear  of  Catholicism  and 
hatred  of  the  Dissenters  led  to  the  imposition  of  a  test  on  all 
public  functionaries.  They  were  called  upon  to  reject  on  oath 
the  doctrine  of  Transiihstantiation  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the 
other,  all  connection  with  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant, 
the  Scottish  pact  concluded  in  1588  and  renewed  in  1637,  for  the 
defence  of  the  National  Presbyterianism  against  Anglicanism 
and  Popery.  The  Corporation  and  Test  Acts  remained  in  force 
until  1828,  when  they  were  abolished,  and  public  functions 
opened  to  both  Catholics  and  Nonconformists. 

27.  The  Dissenters,  who  included  a  large  part  of  the  middle 
and  lower  classes,  were  no  less  hostile  to  Popery  than  to  the 
Established  Church.     The  latter,  deprived  of  the  protection  of 


FROM  ENCYCLOPiEDIA  TO   MODERNISM     163 

the  Test  Acts,  not  unreasonably  felt  itself  threatened.  One  of 
its  intellectual  centres  was  the  University  of  Oxford,  whose 
Christianity,  it  used  to  be  said,  was  somewhat  "  high  and  dry."" 
There  a  movement  towards  reform  took  place,  which  has  been 
called  the  Oxford  or  Tractar'ian  Movement.  This  second  title 
commemorates  the  publication  of  a  series  of  ninety  tracts,  which 
issued  from  Oxford  between  1833  and  1841  to  spread  all  over 
England. 

28.  Among  the  writers  of  these  tracts  the  two  most  notable 
were  Newman  (1801-1890)  and  Pusey  (1800-1882).  They  pro- 
posed to  breathe  new  life  into  the  Anglican  Church  by  removing 
its  Calvinistic  elements,  and  bringing  it  nearer  to  pre-Reforma- 
tion  Christianity  while  purifying  the  latter.  Here  the  influence 
of  Schleiermacher,  whom  Pusey  had  known,  came  in  and  also 
that  of  the  Romantic  movement,  with  its  uncritical  admira- 
tion for  the  Middle  Ages.  This  admiration  had  been  raised  in 
England  almost  to  the  point  of  intoxication  by  the  popularity 
of  Sir  Walter  Scotfs  novels. 

29.  It  soon  became  apparent  that,  in  his  search  for  a  via 
media  between  Anglicanism  and  Romanism,  Newman  was  taking 
on  a  strong  bias  towards  the  latter.  The  Bishop  of  Oxford 
condemned  Tract  No.  90,  and  forbade  the  continuation  of  the 
series  (1841).  Newman  obeyed,  but  four  years  later  was  received 
into  the  Roman  Church  (1845).  For  a  time  he  was  Rector 
of  the  Catholic  University  in  Dublin  (1851-1858),  was  made  a 
Cardinal  by  Leo  XIII.  in  1879,  and  died  in  1890,  in  a  religious 
house  founded  by  himself  (the  Birmingham  Oratory).  Pusey, 
who  wished  to  stop  short  of  Rome,  became  the  head  of  a  new 
group  in  the  Church,  which,  while  professing  fidelity,  dreamt  of 
reconciliation  with  the  Papacy  down  to  the  time  of  the  Vatican 
Council  (1869-1870).  Personally,  he  was  always  against  the 
adoption  of  medieval  ceremonies  in  Anglican  worship.  His 
disciples,  however,  were  not  so  wise.  They  were  carried  away 
by  the  spirit  which  produced  the  great  assthetic  movements  of 
the  time,  and  Puseyism  degenerated  into  Ritualism  (about  1850). 
This  High  Chu7xli  sect,  forming  the  extreme  Right  of  Anglican- 
ism, borrows  the  crucifix,  candles,  incense  and  sacerdotal  orna- 
ments of  Rome,  to  whom  it  also  makes  important  concessions  in 


164    A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

matters  of  dogma,  admitting  the  Real  Presence,  auricular  con- 
fession, and  the  cult  of  the  Virgin.  Gregory  XVI.  said  of  the 
Tractarians :  "They  are  Papists  without  a  Pope,  Catholics 
without  unity,  and  Protestants  without  liberty."  His  dictum 
was  truer  still  of  the  Ritualists. 

30.  Orthodox  Anglicans  and  Dissenters  united  against  the 
new  tendencies.  The  London  mob  sacked  a  Ritualist  church 
(1860).  The  national  sentiments  were  wounded  by  what  was 
called  the  Papal  Aggression,  when  in  1850  Pius  IX.  nominated 
a  Roman  hierarchy  for  Great  Britain,  appointing  the  Vicar 
Apostolic,  Wiseman,  a  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of  Westminster. 
The  cry  of  No  Popery !  was  raised  as  in  the  days  of  Anne.  In 
reply  to  the  creation  of  the  English  Church  Union  (I860)  by 
the  Ritualists,  the  Chwch  Association  was  formed  (1865)  to 
combat  the  romanising  of  English  worship.  Parliament  and 
the  Courts  of  Justice  interposed  more  than  once  in  favour  of 
Anglicanism.  But  they  failed  to  arrest  the  growth  of  Ritualism, 
which  denies  the  right  of  the  State  to  meddle  with  religious 
matters,  and  clamours,  like  the  Nonconformists,  for  disestablish- 
ment. Any  union  with  Rome  is  prevented — in  spite  of  the 
renewal,  by  Leo  XIII.  (1896),  of  attempts  at  an  understanding 
— by  the  opposition,  even  of  the  Ritualists,  to  the  primacy  and 
infallibility  claimed  by  the  "  Bishop  of  Rome."  The  internal 
conflict  has  died  down  in  the  twentieth  century,  not  because 
the  Ritualists  have  modified  their  practices,  but  because  the 
differences  between  them  and  orthodox  High  Churchmen  are 
gradually  vanishing. 

31.  The  Ritualists  not  only  have  schools,  hospitals,  and 
missions :  they  have  imitated  Rome  in  founding  congregations, 
like  those  of  the  Holy  Cjvss  (1853)  and  the  Holy  Sacrament 
(1862).  They  have  even  formed  a  congregation  of  Sisters  of 
Mercy,  the  first  idea  of  which  came  from  Pusey.  These  Sisters 
are  now  established  in  most  of  the  great  London  Hospitals. 

32.  The  good  sense  of  the  English  soon  taught  them  that 
Ritualism  was  disguised  Catholicism.  Many  Tractarians  and 
Ritualists — Newman,  for  instance,  and  Manning,  who  both 
became  cardinals — went  over  to  Rome.  Romanism  is  integral 
Ritualism.    At  first  Ritualism  gained  most  of  its  recruits  among 


FROIil   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     165 

the  upper  classes,  to  whom  religious  dilettantism  and  love  of 
art  made  the  severity  of  Calvinistic  worship  repulsive.  But 
thanks  to  its  organisation  of  work  among  the  poor,  which 
every  one  can  appreciate,  it  has  now  conquered  a  great  following 
among  the  labouring  and  necessitous  classes. 

33.  The  accession  to  Catholicism  of  a  scholar  like  Newman, 
trained  in  Anglican  Oxford,  had  grave  results  for  the  religion 
he  embraced.  One  of  his  works,  an  Essay  on  the  Development 
of  Christian  Doctrine  (1845),  introduced  the  idea  of  religious 
progress  and  the  evolution  of  dogmas  among  educated  Catholics 
and  made  its  author,  much  against  his  will,  one  of  the  parents  of 
Modernism.  Down  to  1854  the  Catholic  doctrine  was  reputed 
to  be  unchangeable.  St.  Vincent  de  Lerins  had  given  as  its 
formula  :  "  What  all  men  have  believed,  everywhere  and  always." 
Bossuet  had  contrasted  the  stable  and  definite  character  of  the 
Roman  Church  with  the  variations  of  the  Reformed  Churches. 
But  in  1854,  Pius  IX.  promulgated  the  dogma  of  the  Immacu- 
late Conception,  without  summoning  a  council,  converting  what 
had  previously  been  a  free  opinion  into  a  dogma  of  the  Church. 
This  was  to  break  with  tradition,  to  affirm,  according  to  New- 
man's ideas,  the  dogmatic  evolution  of  Catholicism.  Where 
was  this  to  stop  ?  The  dogma  of  Papal  Infallibility,  promul- 
gated in  1870,  was  the  answer:  it  would  stop  where  the  Pope 
chose !  This  solution,  which  satisfied  Newman,  was  only  valid 
in  dogmatic  questions.  Historical  matters  remained  where  they 
were.  The  idea  of  evolution  in  dogmas,  and  the  resulting 
necessity  for  the  study  of  their  genesis  and  development,  opened 
the  door  to  free  exegesis,  which  had  previously  been  out  of  the 
reach  of  Catholics.  The  Abbe  Loisy  and  others  passed  through 
the  door  thus  flung  wide. 

34.  The  nineteenth  century  saw  the  development,  in  England 
and  the  United  States,  of  the  rationalistic  Christian  sect  of  the 
Unitarians.  As  early  as  the  sixteenth  century  people  had  been 
burnt  in  England  for  professing  the  principles  of  Arianism  and 
denying  the  Trinity,  The  adherents  of  this  doctrine  coalesced 
with  the  Socinians  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  with  the 
Deists  in  the  eighteenth.  Theophilus  Lindsay  (t  1808)  and 
Joseph  Priestley,  the  great  chemist  (t  1804),  were  the  prophets 


166     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

of  British  Unitarianism.  The  latter  was  obhged  to  leave 
England  (1794)  on  account  of  his  sympathies  with  the  French 
Revolution.  He  introduced  Unitarianism  into  Pennsylvania. 
Christianity  thus  purified  found  a  favourable  soil  in  Boston,  the 
.American  Athens.  Channing,  who  was  to  become  so  famous 
for  his  opposition  to  slavery  (1835)  and  for  his  championship 
of  the  rights  of  justice  and  reason,  became  a  Unitarian  in  1819, 
although  he  was  opposed  to  the  foundation  of  a  new  Church. 
"  An  Established  Church,''  he  declared,  "  is  the  tomb  of  intelli- 
gence." After  Channing,  the  poet  and  moralist,  lialph  Waldo 
Emerson,  advocated  Unitarianism,  the  religion  of  intellectual 
people,  a  Christianity  without  dogma,  and  with  no  temple  but 
men's  hearts.  In  England,  its  chief  representative  was  James 
Martineau  (t  1900),  the  author  of  works  on  Unitarianism  which 
have  now  become  classics.  In  their  pantheistic  tendency  they 
have  much  in  common  with  Spinoza,  and  no  dogmatic  difficulties 
stand  in  the  way  of  their  acceptance  by  the  liberal  Judaism  of 
our  own  day. 

35.  The  United  States  was  the  first  great  country  to  separate 
Church  and  State  completely,  leaving  the  field  entirely  open  to 
the  free  rivalry  of  religions.  The  result  has  been  to  give  a 
certain  advantage  to  Catholicism,  which  has  the  centralisation 
of  power  for  one  of  its  principles,  over  Protestantism,  which 
splits  naturally  into  sects.  Among  the  numerous  Protestant 
sects,  selection  will  do  its  work  and  will  develop,  as  elsewhere,  a 
form  of  religion  without  any  exacting  theology,  but  preoccupied 
rather  with  social  and  moral  questions.  At  the  present  moment 
the  fifteen  millions  of  Catholics  form  a  larger  group  than  any 
one  of  the  Protestant  sects  of  America. 

36.  Spiritualism,  which  is  really  a  religion,  had  its  origin 
in  the  United  States.  There,  too,  arose  one  of  the  strangest 
phenomena  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Mormomsm.  Mormonism 
is  one  of  those  religious  epidemics,  or  revivals,  to  which  the 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples  seem  more  prone  than  others,  on  account 
of  their  free  reading,  often  practised  in  common,  of  the  sacred 
writings.  In  1 830,  Joseph  Smith,  a  visionary  pedlar,  announced 
to  credulous  people  that  he  had  had  a  revelation  referring  the 
American  people  to  the  family  of  the  patriarch  Joseph,  and 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     167 

foretelling  the  early  appearance  of  a  Messiah.  An  angel  had 
brought  him  this  revelation,  engraved  on  gold  plates  in  Egyptian 
characters.  The  imposture  succeeded  in  spite  of  its  grossness. 
After  several  migrations,  the  ne^v  sect  established  itself  in  the 
State  of  Illinois,  where  it  built  a  great  temple  (1841).  It  called 
itself  The  Church  of  Latter  Day  Saints.  They  were  also  called 
Mormons,  because  one  of  the  pretended  descendants  of  Joseph, 
who  had  emigrated  to  America  some  six  hundred  years  b.c, 
bore  the  name  of  Mormon,  and  had  compiled  the  holy  book  of 
the  sect,  a  translation  of  the  pretended  golden  tablets.  This 
holy  book  is  a  clumsy  plagiarism  from  the  Bible  and  from  a 
romance  published  in  1812.  It  is  devoid  of  both  talent  and 
originality  ;  but  religious  enthusiasm  does  not  reason.  Formed 
into  an  agricultural  and  industrial  republic,  rapidly  increased 
by  immigrants  from  various  other  countries,  the  Mormons  gave 
themselves  up  with  docility  to  the  guidance  of  their  "  prophet." 
Smith,  wishing  to  restore  patriarchal  manners,  authorised  poly- 
gamy (1843).  This  scandalised  the  population  of  Illinois,  who 
first  imprisoned  the  prophet  and  then  put  him  to  death  (1844). 
Upon  that  the  Mormons,  led  by  Smith's  favourite  disciple, 
Brigham  Young,  a  carpenter,  went  on  trek  once  more.  They 
settled  in  Utah,  near  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  and  there  built  a 
new  capital  in  Salt  Lake  City  (1847).  When  Brigham  Young 
died  in  his  turn  (1877),  he  left  seventeen  wives,  fifty-six  children, 
and  a  fortune  of  two  million  dollars.  The  head  of  the  Mormons 
in  1901  was  Joseph  F.  Smith,  a  nephew  of  the  prophet.  The 
number  of  his  followers  was  estimated  at  300,000,  exclusive  of 
some  15,000  dispersed  about  Europe.  Their  religion  requires 
the  baptism  of  adults  only  by  total  immersion.  They  also 
baptise  "  for  the  dead,"  after  the  example  of  certain  primitive 
Christians.  Franklin  and  Lincoln  were  thus  rescued  from  the 
fires  of  hell, 

37.  In  1884  the  United  States  Congress  forbade  polygamy 
in  any  part  of  the  Union,  and  instituted  prosecutions  against 
those  who  practised  it ;  so  the  Mormons  renounced  part  of  their 
inheritance  from  the  patriarchs  of  Israel,  The  2000  missionaries 
they  support  have  been  better  received  in  consequence.  The 
still  incomplete  history  of  the  Latter  Day  Saints  is  that  of  an 


168     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

initial  fraud  from  which  certain  energetic  organisers,  helped  by 
many  willing  dupes,  have  won  great  results  in  the  interests  of  a 
Avhole  community. 

•  •  •  •  • 

38.  Frederick  the  Great  and  Catherine  II.  were  philosophic 
sovereigns,  so  far  as  laughing  at  sacred  things  in  company  with 
Voltaire,  Diderot,  and  others  went ;  but  they  had  no  idea  of 
weakening  in  their  States  that  Christianity  which,  personally, 
they  despised.  The  German  Emperor,  Joseph  II.,  was  the  true 
crowned  philosopher  of  his  time,  in  spite  of  his  mediocre 
abilities  and  his  tactlessness.  He  wished  to  realise  in  law  the 
secular  ideas  with  which  his  mind  was  imbued.  In  1781  he 
established  toleration  in  his  Empire,  closed  nearly  all  the  con- 
vents and  sequestrated  their  property,  forbade  the  publication 
of  papal  briefs  without  his  own  authority,  and  stopped  those 
appeals  to  Rome  which  fostered  defective  discipline  in  his 
clergy.  He  was  compared  to  Julian  the  Apostate  and  became 
most  unpopular,  in  spite  of  the  useful  reforms  by  which  his 
reign  was  distinguished.  The  French  Revolution  frightened 
him.  By  the  time  he  died,  in  1790,  he  could  foresee  that 
philosophy  would  soon  attack  the  occupants  of  thrones  them- 
selves. Nevertheless,  it  was  not  until  1855  that  Austria  dis- 
avowed Joseph  II.  In  that  year  a  Concordat  (repealed  in 
1870)  was  concluded  with  Pius  IX.,  restoring  the  prerogatives 
to  the  clergy  and  rescinding  all  the  laws  by  which  the  Church 
was  deprived  of  its  power  over  education.  The  Roman  Church 
again  took  up  its  control  of  schools,  of  marriage,  and  of 
literature.  This  treaty  was  one  of  the  last  triumphs  of 
theocracy  in  Europe. 

89.  In  the  eighteenth  century  Protestantism  was  no  more 
tolerated  in  Austria  than  in  France.  The  province  of  Salzburg, 
which  had  been  governed  by  a  prince-bishop  ever  since  1278, 
drove  the  Protestants  out  in  1731,  after  inflicting  outrages  upon 
them  which  drew  protests  from  the  Prussian  king.  The  exiles 
went  to  Holland  and  North  America,  where  refugees  are  always 
welcome.  The  nineteenth  century  recognised  toleration,  at 
least  in  principle.  During  its  last  twenty  years  Protestantism 
even  gained  some  ground  in  Austria.     A  movement  with  the 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     169 

motto  Los  von  Rom  (Away  from  Rome !)  detached  a  few 
thousand  families  from  Catholicism,  but  was  soon  checked,  it 
is  said,  by  sheer  bribery, 

40.  The  revision  of  the  Russian  liturgical  books  by  the 
patriarch  Nikon  (1605-1681)  provoked  the  secession  of  the 
Rnskolmks  from  the  State  Church.  These  fanatical  conserva- 
tives are  known  as  "  Old  Believers,"  and  still  number  several 
millions  in  Russia.  Among  Russian  heretics  there  are  certain 
wild  mystics,  called  Skoptsy,  who  aim,  not  at  the  ameliora- 
tion, but  at  the  extinction,  of  the  human  race.  There  is  also 
the  rationalistic  sect  of  the  Dukhohortsy,  who  reject  all  cere- 
monial and  veneration  of  images.  As  Orthodox  Christianity 
was  the  State  religion,  all  these  sectaries  were  held  in  suspicion 
and  persecuted  under  the  autocratic  regime. 

41.  The  Polish  Catholics  and  those  Ruthenians  who  remain 
in  communion  with  the  Roman  Church,  although  their  rites  are 
Oriental,  have  suffered  even  more.  If  the  Polish  martyrs  were 
immolated  for  political  rather  than  fanatical  reasons,  the 
Uniates  were  persecuted  solely  because  they  refused  to  enter  the 
State  Church.  "  They  have  undergone  trials  and  punishments 
of  every  kind,  exile  from  their  homes,  Siberia.  They  numbered 
eight  millions  in  the  seventeenth  century  ;  had  shrunk  to 
800,000  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth;  to-day  (1897) 
not  more  than  100,000  Ruthenians  are  left  to  groan.  .  .  . 
The  others  have  disappeared  :  exile,  prison,  death,  and  apostasy 
have  accounted  for  what  was  once  an  important  Church."  ^ 

42.  A  curious  episode  in  the  reaction  of  1815  was  the 
influence  wielded  over  the  Czar  Alexander  I.  by  the  Baroness 
von  Krlidener,  who,  after  a  most  dissipated  youth,  became  a 
m3'stic  at  the  age  of  forty.  Still  beautiful,  and  believing  herself 
inspired,  she  gained  such  ascendancy  over  the  Pietist  Emperor 
that  he  accepted  from  her  (and  from  the  mesmerist  Bergasse) 
the  curious  idea  of  the  Holy  AlUance,  concluded  on  September  26, 
1815,  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  between  Russia,  Prussia, 
and  Austria.  Alexander  ended  by  finding  that  she  lacked 
discretion,  and  broke  with  her.  But  she  continued  to  rush 
about   the  world,  preaching,  giving  alms,  dragging  people  as 

^  Pisani,  A  travers  VOrient,  p.  177. 


170     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

crazy  as  herself  into  her  own  track.  The  missions  undertaken 
by  her  and  her  friends  were  a  sort  of  foretaste  of  the  Salvation 
Army.  Madame  de  Krudener's  adventurous  existence  came  to 
an  end  in  the  Crimea,  in  1824.  In  one  of  her  last  letters  she 
wrote :  "  Very  often  have  I  taken  for  the  voice  of  God  what 
was  nothing  but  the  fruit  of  my  own  pride  and  imagination." 
She  might  have  recognised  this  a  little  sooner. 

•  •  •  ■  • 

43.  The  period  of  the  Directory  in  France  witnessed  a 
revival  of  Catholicism,  under  the  new  regime  of  Disestablish- 
ment, though  the  Government  was  quite  irreligious.  In  1796 
public  worship  had  been  resumed  in  more  than  30,000  French 
parishes.  Parisian  society  again  found  its  way  to  church, 
ecclesiastics  again  donned  their  vestments.  Five  hundred 
priests  were  ordained  in  a  single  year.  Madame  de  Stael, 
Lafayette,  and  other  moderate  spirits  wished  this  state  of 
things  to  continue,  as  favourable  to  the  free  play  of  opinions. 
But  the  First  Consul,  Bonaparte,  had  need  of  the  Pope  ;  he 
thought  he  could  secure  the  support  of  the  Roman  Church 
by  intimidation,  that  he  could  turn  bishops  and  priests  into 
gendarmes  without  again  subjecting  France  to  the  demands 
of  the  Holy  See.  He  made  up  his  mind  to  conclude  a  new 
Concordat  with  Pius  VII.,  to  replace  that  of  1516,  which  had 
been  torn  up  by  the  National  Assembly. 

44.  The  essential  aim  of  every  Concordat  between  a  Pope 
and  a  temporal  sovereign  is  to  secure  the  latter  in  his  right  of 
nominating  bishops,  and  to  preserve  for  the  former  the  right  of 
canonical  institution,  permitting  him  to  reject  unworthy  candi- 
dates or  those  whom  Rome  has  reason  to  mistrust.  The 
Parliament  of  Paris,  looking  with  favour  on  the  old  Galilean 
custom  by  which  bishops  were  elected  by  the  cathedral  chapters, 
long  resisted  the  Concordat  between  Leo  X.  and  Francis  I. 
(1516).  The  French  monarchs,  who  owed  their  spiritual 
investiture  to  the  Papacy,  never  ceased  to  busy  themselves 
with  whittling  away  the  rights  of  Rome  over  the  Church  of 
France,  not  because  they  wished  to  make  that  Church  in- 
dependent, but  because,  from  fiscal  motives  among  others, 
they  wished  to   keep  it  well  in  hand.     In  that,  as  in  many 


FROM   ENCYCLOPAEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     171 

other  things,  Bonaparte  simply  took  up  the  traditions  of  the 
monarchy. 

45.  After  rapid  though  difficult  negotiations,  in  which 
Bonaparte  recoiled  neither  at  threats  of  violence  nor  attempts 
at  fraud,  the  Concordat  was  signed  in  1801  and  promulgated  in 
1802.  Catholicism  was  recognised  not  as  the  State  religion, 
but  as  the  religion  "of  the  .great  majority  of  French  citizens."" 
The  clergy  were  to  receive  salaries  from  the  State,  the  bishops 
were  to  be  nominated  by  the  State,  with  the  reserve  that 
their  investiture  lay  with  the  Pope.  Resorting  to  trickery, 
Bonaparte  promulgated,  at  the  same  time  as  the  Concordat 
(April  8,  1802),  certain  so-called  0?'ganic  Articles^  forming  a 
sort  of  religious  police  code.  Among  other  things  these  articles 
had  to  do  with  the  regulation  of  Protestant  worship  (Jewish 
worship  was  not  recognised  and  regulated  until  1808).  But  the 
essential  articles  were  aimed  at  Home,  paralysing  all  direct 
interference  by  the  Pope  in  the  affairs  of  the  French  Church. 
Pius  VII.,  who  had  had  no  warning,  protested  (1803).  "The 
Organic  Articles,""  said  Montalembert  in  1844,  "were  in  our 
opinion  a  violation  of  the  Concordat.  They  were  never  recog- 
nised by  the  Church.""  The  contrary  has  been  asserted.  The 
whole  question  is  one  of  shades  of  meaning.  It  is  certain  that 
Pius  VII.,  although  he  was  obliged  to  crown  Bonaparte  at 
Notre-Dame,  believed  that  he  had  been  duped,  and  never 
ceased  to  show  his  resentment.  He  refused  investiture  to  the 
new  bishops,  and  replied  to  the  brutalities  of  Napoleon  by 
excommunication  (1809).  Deprived  of  his  dominions,  he  be- 
came the  Emperor''s  prisoner,  first  at  Savona  and  then  at 
Fontainebleau,  where  in  1813  he  was  driven  almost  by  force 
to  sign  a  new  Concordat,  which  was  never  recognised.  By  it 
the  Pope  agreed  thenceforward  to  live  at  Avignon  !  Very  soon 
afterwards  this  treaty  was  disavowed  by  Pius  VII.,  who  regained 
the  States  of  the  Church  after  the  successes  of  the  Allies  in 
1814.  If  Pius  VII.  had  died  at  this  juncture  he  would  have 
left  the  reputation  of  a  saint  and  hero  behind  him,  for  he  had 
faced  the  insults  and  injustice  of  Napoleon  with  a  steadfastness 
which  was  truly  admirable.  Unhappily  for  his  memory,  he 
lived  long  enough  to  unchain  the  reaction. 


172     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

46.  The  definitive  restoration  of  temporal  power  to  the 
Popes  (1815)  marked  the  beginning  of  a  long  period  of  bad 
government.  In  their  own  States,  where  the  oppression  of  the 
papal  agents  brought  about  poverty,  and  poverty  brigandage, 
the  Popes  had  to  reckon  with  ever-increasing  opposition  ;  out- 
side, in  Italy,  aspirations  towards  unity  threatened  the  very 
foundations  of  their  power ;  in  Europe  generally  those  liberal 
ideas  which  had  survived  the  collapse  of  the  Encyclopaedia  were 
enemies  against  which  it  was  difficult  to  make  head,  now  that 
the  scourge,  the  dungeon  and  the  stake  were  no  longer  at  the 
service  of  the  Church. 

47.  Pius  VII.  re-established  the  Society  of  Jesus  (August 
1814),  which,  indeed,  had  managed  to  survive  in  Prussia  and 
Poland,  in  spite  of  its  condemnation  by  Clement  XIV.  Their 
wealth,  intelligence  and  influence  over  women  and  young  people 
made  the  Jesuits  very  powerful  auxiliaries  to  the  Papacy.  The 
Pope  condemned  the  Freemasons  and  the  Carbonari  (a  secret 
society  which  had  the  liberation  of  Italy  for  its  aim),  excited  the 
Congregation  of  the  Index  to  renewed  activity,  restricted  the 
translation  of  the  Bible  into  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  fought 
against  that  liberal  evolution  in  Spain  and  Portugal  which 
was  presently  to  be  arrested  by  French  intervention.  His 
successors  were  scarcely  more  happily  inspired.  But  the  supreme 
perils  and  difficulties  were  reserved  for  Pius  IX.  (Masta'i 
Ferretti,  1846-1878).  At  the  beginning  of  his  reign  he  showed 
a  disposition  to  grant  the  reforms  demanded  by  the  wretched 
economical  condition  of  his  States.  But  after  a  popular  out- 
break, which  obliged  him  to  take  refuge  in  Gaeta  (November 
1848),  his  attitude  changed  completely.  The  French  Republic 
declared  war  against  the  Roman  :  Rome  was  taken,  and  Pius 
IX.  replaced  on  his  throne  (April  1850).  He  abused  his  power 
like  a  tyrant.  Between  1850  and  1855  more  than  ninety  people 
were  condemned  to  death  in  Rome  for  political  offences.  Between 
1849  and  1856,  no  fewer  than  276  executions  took  place  in 
Bologna.  The  Papal  Government  was  for  years  in  the  hands  of 
the  unworthy  Cardinal  Antonelli,  who  scandalised  Europe  with 
the  reign  of  terror  he  established.  A  Jewish  child,  Mortara, 
baptised   by  a  servant,  was  taken  by  force  from  its  parents  at 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     173 

Bologna  and  kept  in  a  convent,  in  spite  of  the  energetic  protests 
of  Napoleon  III.,  of  the  English  Government,  and  of  liberal 
Europe  generally  (1858).  Four  years  earlier  Pius  IX.  had  pro- 
mulgated the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception.  In  1864 
he  published,  or  allowed  to  be  published,  what  was  called  The 
Syllabus.  This  was  a  summary  of  all  the  opinions  condemned 
in  his  previous  Bulls  and  allocutions.  Every  one  of  the  con- 
demned propositions  is  such  as  any  sensible  man  and  liberal 
Christian  would  accept  without  hesitation.  It  was  a  defiance 
to  secular  Europe,  to  science,  to  the  very  idea  of  progi'ess. 
Napoleon  III.  forbade  its  official  publication  in  France,  and 
would,  indeed,  have  abandoned  Pio  Nono's  government  to  its 
fate  but  for  certain  feminine  influences  which  hampered  him. 
The  States  of  the  Church  had  been  greatly  diminished  in  1860, 
to  the  gain  of  the  new  kingdom  of  Italy.  Ever  since  1850 
a  French  garrison  had  occupied  Rome,  upholding  Antonelli's 
oppressive  regime.  In  1864  it  was  withdrawn  at  the  instance 
of  the  Italian  Government.  In  1867  Garibaldi  marched  against 
the  Papal  States.  A  French  division  was  landed  to  oppose 
him  ;  it  added  the  pitiful  name  of  Mentana  to  the  list  of  French 
victories,  and  renewed  that  occupation  of  Rome  which  lasted 
until  1870. 

48.  It  occurred  to  the  Jesuits  to  have  a  new  council,  in 
order  that  the  doctrine  of  Papal  Infallibility  might  be  erected 
into  a  dogma.  This  only  meant,  of  course,  that  the  Pope  should 
be  declared  infallible  when  proclaiming  a  religious  proposition 
from  his  chair  {ex  cathedra).  But  even  when  so  restricted, 
infallibility  wounded  the  reason  not  less  than  the  teachings  of 
the  past.  It  was  an  outcome  of  that  Ultramontanism  which 
the  Dominican  Lacordaire  once  declared  to  be  "  the  greatest 
piece  of  insolence  yet  put  forward  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ." 
The  first  result  was  to  elevate  the  Pope's  authority  in  dogmatic 
questions  above  that  of  a  council.  The  second  was  to  give 
the  lie  to  undeniable  historical  facts,  such  as  the  condemnation 
of  the  heresy  of  Pope  Honorius  I.  by  the  QEcumenical  Council 
of  681  and  a  whole  series  of  its  successors.  Enlightened  pre- 
lates, in  France,  Germany  and  Austria,  were  hostile  to  the 
doctrine    of    Infallibihty ;    but    the    Jesuits,    relying    on    the 


174     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

support  of  the  fanatical  masses,  pushed  on  to  their  goal,  and 
the  dogma  was  proclaimed  on  July  18,  1870,  on  the  eve  of 
the  declaration  of  war  between  France  and  Prussia.  At  that 
moment,  Napoleon  III.  might  perhaps  have  saved  his  crown 
and  secured  the  military  co-operation  of  Victor  Emmanuel 
by  abandoning  Rome  to  Italy.  The  Catholic  coterie  at  the 
Tuileries  prevented  him.  But  he  was  soon  obliged  to  withdraw 
the  French  garrison  from  Rome.  After  a  slight  bombardment^ 
the  Italian  troops  marched  in  through  the  breach  on  September  20, 
and  put  an  end  to  the  temporal  power  of  the  Popes.  Pius  IX. 
refused  to  accept  the  laiv  of  ffuarcmtee,  which  left  him,  with 
certain  other  privileges,  the  sovereignty  of  the  Vatican  and  the 
Lateran.  Until  his  death  in  1878  he  never  ceased  to  protest 
against  the  Italian  usurpation,  and  his  successors,  Leo  XIII. 
and  Pius  X.,  have  done  the  same.  But  the  Italian  Government 
has  shown  the  greatest  deference  towards  the  Popes.  It  has 
scrupulously  refrained  from  pushing  its  authority  over  the 
thresholds  of  the  pontifical  palaces.  That  has  not  prevented 
the  country  clergy  from  talking  of  the  "  prisoner  of  the 
Vatican,"  or  from  describing  to  emotional  peasants  "  the  damp 
straw  of  the  Pope's  dungeon." 

•  •  •  •  • 

49.  As  early  as  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  centur}^  the 
Catholic  reaction  began  to  show  itself  in  France  in  the  domain 
of  ideas.  La  Harpe,  the  protege  and  servile  admirer  of  Voltaire, 
chanted  a  palinode  after  the  Terror  and  posed  as  an  enemy  of 
the  philosophers.  A  Breton  noble,  more  highly  gifted  than  La 
Harpe,  published  in  1802  a  brilliant  and  superficial  work  which 
foreshadowed  Romanticism  and  had  an  extraordinary  success. 
This  was  Chateaubriand's  Genie  du  Christianisine.  The  Catho- 
licism of  Chateaubriand  was  mainly  sentimental  and  aesthetic ; 
that  of  Bonald,  also  proclaimed  in  1802,  was  simply  theological, 
and  even  theocratical.  Joseph  de  Maistre,  a  Savoyard  by  birth, 
went  still  further  in  his  hatred  of  revolutionary  principles,  in 
his  exaltation  of  the  Papacy  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  his  impudent 
denials  of,  and  apologies  for,  the  misdeeds  of  the  Church. 
This  gifted  fanatic  was  the  founder  of  the  Ultramontane 
School,  so  called  because  it  looks  for  its  inspiration  to  Rome, 


FROM   ENCYCLOPAEDIA   TO   MODERNIS^M     175 

"  beyond  the  Alps."  Throughout  the  nineteenth  century  Jesuit 
intolerance  of  the  Gallican  tendencies  shown  by  many  of  the 
French  clergy,  and  of  the  liberal  trend  of  opinion  generally, 
found  its  spokesmen  among  the  publicists  of  this  school.  Of 
these  men  the  most  noisy  and  aggressive  was  Louis  Veuillot 
(1813-1883).  Most  of  the  present  members  of  the  Royalist 
party  known  as  the  Action  fran^aise  are  followers  of  Joseph  de 
Maistre  and  Veuillot,  although  personally  they  may  be  avowed 
sceptics.  One  of  the  worst  features  of  Ultramontane  polemics 
is  their  scurrility.  Once  enrolled  in  the  party,  even  cultivated 
laymen  talk  like  monks  of  the  League,  lying  and  insulting 
ad  libitum.  Writing  in  1850,  Victor  Hugo  thus  castigated 
Veuillot  and  his  organ,  V  Univers : 

Regardez  :  le  voili  !     Son  journal  frenijtique 
Plait  aux  devots  et  semble  ecrit  par  de8  bandits. 
II  fait  des  fausses  clefs  dans  rarriure-boiitique 
Pour  la  ports  du  Paradis.  .  .  . 

C'est  ainai  qu'outrageant  gloires,  vertus,  g^nies, 
Charmant  par  tant  d'horreurs  quelquea  niais  fougueux, 
II  vit  tranquillement  dans  les  ignominies, 
Simple  j^suite  et  triple  gueux. 

50.  Of  a  higher  order  than  these  men  whose  pens  were 
steeped  in  gall  were  the  Liberal  Catholics,  who  endeavoured 
to  reconcile  Catholicism  not  only  with  the  principles  of  1789, 
but  even  with  more  recent  aspirations  towards  fraternity  and 
social  justice.  The  first  organ  of  this  party  in  France  was 
VAvenir  (1830),  a  journal  edited  by  the  Abbe  de  Lamennais 
(1782-1854),  Pere  Lacordaire  (1802-1861),  and  Montalembert 
(1810-1870).  It  exhorted  the  Church  to  accept  democracy,  and 
was  denounced  as  subversive  to  Gregory  XVI.  Lamennais  made 
his  submission  in  1832,  but  shortly  afterwards  published  his 
Paroles  (Tun  Croyant,  in  which  he  aggravated  what  were  called 
his  errors.  A  bishop  stigmatised  it  as  an  "  Apocalypse  of  the 
devil."  He  was  excommunicated,  and  passed  over  to  the 
revolutionary  party.  Lacordaire  submitted  without  reserve  in 
1832,  after  which  he  devoted  his  great  powers  to  preaching. 
He  became  a  Dominican  in  1840,  and  did  much  to  revive  the 
glory  of  the  Order  in  France.  No  less  docile  under  the  censures 
of  the  Church,  the  Comte   de  Montalembert  took  refuge   in 


176     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

politics,  and  became  a  brilliant  defender  of  oppressed  nationali- 
ties— the  Poles,  the  Irish — but  nevertheless  did  his  best  to  stem 
the  flowing  tide  of  democratic  ideas,  which  terrified  him.  Men 
like  Due  Victor  de  Broglie,  and  the  two  Cochins,  Augustin  and 
Denys,  followed  the  same  route  down  to  our  own  time,  a 
route  midway  between  Ultramontanism  on  the  one  hand,  and 
aristocratic  Liberalism  on  the  other. 

51.  Catholic  democracy  was  also  represented  by  the  priest 
Murri,  in  Italy,  and  in  France  by  the  lay  society  of  the 
Silloji,  founded  by  Marc  Sangnier.  The  Sillon  displeased  some 
French  bishops  by  its  independence,  and  its  alleged  Franciscan 
tendencies,  while  Murri  was  ordered  by  Pius  X.  to  cease  his 
publications,  and  excommunicated  (March  1909)  for  having 
disobeyed  the  injunction. 

52.  The  political  reaction  which  followed  the  Hundred  Days 
was  marked,  in  Southern  France,  by  a  sanguinary  persecution  of 
Protestants  and  Liberals.  This  was  called  the  Terreu?-  hlanche, 
or  White  Terror.  In  Paris,  and  in  spite  of  the  moderation  of 
the  Voltairian  Louis  XVIII.,  who  was  hostile  to  Joseph  le 
Maistre,  the  so-called  introuvahle  Chamber  seemed  desirous  of 
bringing  back  the  Middle  Ages.  It  was  dissolved  by  the  king 
on  the  advice  of  his  minister  Richelieu  (September  1816). 
Thereupon  a  society  of  priests  and  laymen,  known  as  the  Con- 
gregation (originally  founded  under  the  Directory)  rose  to 
considerable  importance  in  politics.  Its  leaders  were  the  Comte 
d'Artois  (Charles  X.),  the  Vicomte  de  Montmorency  and  Prince 
Jules  de  Polignac.  It  opposed  Liberal  ideas  with  all  its  force, 
especially  in  matters  of  education.  In  its  solicitude  for  the 
throne  and  the  altar,  it  imposed  upon  Louis  XVIII.  the  shame- 
ful Spanish  expedition  which  restored  despotism  in  that  unhappy 
country.  Under  Charles  X.  the  Congregation  was  powerful 
enough  to  secure  the  passing  of  the  Loi  du  sacrilege  (1825), 
which,  among  other  severities,  put  the  profanation  of  the  host 
on  the  same  level  as  parricide.  It  must  be  allowed  that  this 
law  was  never  put  in  force. 

53.  The  extravagances  of  the  Congregation  should  not 
mislead  us,  however.  Its  members  were  inspired  more  by 
politics  than  by  religious  fanaticism.     These  survivors  from  the 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     177 

eighteenth  century  put  the  throne  before  the  altar,  and  what 
the  throne  had  to  give  before  the  thi'one  itself.  While  the 
Chavih'e  introuvable  was  still  in  existence,  Lameunais  was  writing 
his  Essai  sur  Vlndifference,  in  which  he  reproached  the  upper 
classes  of  his  time  with  infidelity,  and  with  giving  all  their 
aspirations  to  temporal  matters.  One  has  only  to  read  the 
Mcmoires  of  the  Comtesse  de  Boigne  and  of  the  Duchesse  de 
Dino  to  be  convinced  that  the  aristocracy  of  those  days  looked 
upon  religion  mainly  as  a  guarantee  of  the  social  order  which 
safeguarded  their  interests. 

54.  Louis  Philippe,  who  had  ousted  the  legitimate  monarchy, 
thought  a  great  deal  more  about  the  throne  than  about  the 
altar.  The  University,  founded  by  Napoleon,  possessed  the 
monopoly  of  instruction.  She  clung  to  it  jealously,  and 
the  struggles  in  favour  of  what  was  called  liberty  of  teaching — 
that  is,  the  teaching  of  the  Jesuits — did  not  succeed.  There 
was  a  change  after  the  Revolution  of  1848.  In  their  hatred  of 
the  Orleanists,  the  clergy  made  common  cause  with  the  Repub- 
licans, especially  after  those  sanguinary  days  of  June  which 
terrified  the  Conservative  middle  classes.  "  Let  us  throw  our- 
selves at  the  feet  of  the  bishops ! "  cried  Victor  Cousin.  The 
Jesuits  at  once  reappeared  in  France.  Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
elected  President  in  December,  had  need  of  the  clergy  in  his 
meditated  usurpation.  He  gave  them  a  pledge  of  his  good 
intentions  by  the  expedition  to  Rome  which  restored  the  govern- 
ment of  Pius  IX.  But  the  chief  aim  of  the  Jesuits  was  to  lay 
their  hands  once  more  on  the  machinery  of  secondary  education. 
Thanks  to  the  interested  complaisance  of  the  President  and  the 
unscrupulous  skill  of  the  Comte  de  Falloux,  an  apologist  for  the 
Inquisition,  they  succeeded  in  their  aim  (1850).  From  that 
time  forward,  French  youth  was  divided  into  two  camps.  The 
most  wealthy,  and,  in  consequence  of  the  desire  of  the  bourgeois 
to  rub  shoulders  with  the  noble,  the  most  rapidly  increasing 
was  that  which  grew  up  in  the  hatred  of  Liberalism,  and  in  the 
worship  of  an  intolerant  and  despotic  past.  In  twenty  years 
this  regime  bore  fruit ;  the  Third  Republic,  long  captive  to  the 
^^  parti  noir,''''  tasted  all  its  bitterness. 

55.  The  insatiable  pretensions  of  the  Roman  Church  were  a 

N 


178     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

cause  of  weakness  to  the  Second  Empire.  Napoleon  III.,  liberal 
enough  himself,  but  married  to  a  devout  Spanish  wife,  was 
gradually  driven,  by  the  pressure  of  cardinals,  bishops,  and 
Jesuits,  to  sacrifice  his  throne  and  country  to  the  cause  of  Pius 
IX.  In  home  affairs  his  most  liberal  and  best-liked  minister, 
Victor  Duruy,  was  continually  called  upon  to  defend  the  teach- 
ing of  the  University  against  the  calumnies  and  chicaneries  of 
the  Clericals.  The  Emperor  was  the  captive  of  his  past.  The 
Church  had  sung  the  Te  Deum  after  the  cojip  d'etat,  so  he  was 
compelled  to  put  up  with  its  encroachments. 

56.  The  disasters  of  1870-71  brought  about  a  religious  and 
political  reaction.     France  fell  into   the   grip    of  Clericalism. 
While   awaiting   the    restoration    of    the    monarchy    and   the 
temporal    power    of  the    Papacy,    the   clergy    developed    their 
educational  machinery  in  every  direction  and  founded  Catholic 
universities.     Two  reactions,  baffled  by  universal  suffrage,  those 
of  May  24,  1873,  and  May  16,  1877,  were  the  scarcely  masked 
work  of  the  Clerical  party,  which  had  found  a  discreet  but  safe 
protector  in  Marshal  MacMahon,  who  had  succeeded  Thiers  as 
President   of  the   Republic.     Under  a   third  President,  Jules 
Grevy,  the  Republican  party  became  the  majority,  and,  awaken- 
ing at  last  to  the  source  of  its  pei-il,  obtained  the  dissolution  of 
all  non-legalised   congregations    (1880).     This  dissolution  was 
a  farce,  very  discreetly  combined,  of  which  we  do  not  yet  under- 
stand the  details.     A  few  years  afterwards  the  Jesuit  schools 
w^ere  even  more  numerous  and  flourishing.     It  was  within  their 
walls,  especially  within  those  of  the  £,cole  de  la  Rue  des  Pastes 
in  Paris,  that  future  officers  of  the  army  and  navy  were  pre- 
pared.    The  Congregations  supported  General  Boulanger  in  his 
attempt  at  a  dictatorship  (1887),  and  imprudently  threw  in 
their  lot  with  those  Anti-Semitic,  Anti-Protestant,  and  Anti- 
Liberal  movements  which  declared  themselves  after  1885.    Pope 
Leo  XIII.  advised  Catholics  to  rally  to  Republican  institutions 
(1891).      Their   chiefs    obeyed,    Avithout    enthusiasm,    and    set 
themselves  to  prepare  a  Clerical  republic. 

57.  The  condemnation  for  treason  of  a  Jewish  officer,  Alfred 
Dreyfus  (December  1894),  was  a  triumph  for  the  Clericals. 
Unhappily   for   them,   Dreyfus    was   innocent.     He   had   been 


FROM   ENCYCLOPAEDIA  TO   MODERNISM     179 

saddled  with  the  crime  of  a  quondam  papal  officer,  Esterhazy, 
who  had  passed  into  the  service  of  France.    As  soon  as  Scheurer- 
Kestner,  Vice-President  of  the  Senate,  had  convinced  himself  of 
the   prisoner's    innocence,   he   formed  a  party   to  demand  the 
revision   of  his   trial.     The   one  document    on   which    Dreyfus 
had  been  condemned  and  sent  to  the  He  du  Diable  (Guiana), 
was  a  letter  in  which  all  the  expert  paleographers  recognised 
the  writing  of  Esterhazy,  as  soon  as  they  had  had  an  opportunity 
of  compai'ison    (1897).     The   evidence    was    decisive,    and   the 
whole  business  might  have  been  settled  in  a  fortnight.     It  took 
nearly  ten  years.     In  spite  of  all  the  proofs  of  his  felony,  Ester- 
hazy was  acquitted.     Colonel  Picquart,  Avho  had  discovered  and 
asserted  the  innocence  of  Drevfus  even  before  Scheurer-Kestner, 
was   thrown    into    prison.     Those  who    cried    for  justice   were 
accused  of  forming  a  "  syndicate  of  treason,"  and  the  whole 
Church,  priests  and  monks,  with  a  few  honourable  exceptions, 
cast  its  influence  into  the  scales  on  the  side  of  injustice,  flooding 
the  entire  country  with  calumnies  and  lies.    The  Assumptionists 
especially  distinguished  themselves  in  the  disgraceful  campaign. 
Their   organ,  La  Croix,  rivalled  that  of  the  declared   Anti- 
Semites  in  preaching  a  new  St.  Bartholomew.     The  head  of  the 
General  Staff  of  the  army.  General  Boisdeffre,  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Father  du  Lac,  the  most  influential  of  the  Jesuits. 
The  Jesuits  had  in  their  hands  the  supply  of  officers  and  their 
promotion.     Every  Republican  and  Liberal  officer  had  a  bad 
mark  against  him.     The  President  himself,  Felix  Faure,  had 
been  captured  by  the  Clericals,  who  had  their  creatures  and 
accomplices  in  all  the  public  offices.    For  two  years  a  real  terror 
hung  over  France.     Encouraged   by  practically  the  whole  of 
external  Europe,  the  Intelleciuels  fought  for  the  honour  of  their 
country  under  a  flood  of  insults  at  home.     Their  final  success, 
modest  though  it  was,  was  due  to  the  help  of  the  Socialists,  who, 
indifferent  at  first  to   what  they   looked  upon  as  a  bourgeois 
quarrel,  understood  at  last  that  they  would  be  the  first  victims 
of  any  political  reaction.     Condemned  a  second  time  at  Rennes 
(1899),  but  afterwards  pardoned  by  the  new  President,  Loubet, 
Dreyfus  did  not  regain  his  rank  until  190G,  when  his  rehabilita- 
tion   followed   upon    an   inquiry    which    enabled    the    Cour   de 


180     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Cassation  to  quash  the  Rennes  conviction.  During  the  war  of 
1914-8,  he  served  in  the  artillery  and  was  promoted  lieutenant- 
colonel.  Picquart  became  Minister  of  War  after  being  promoted 
General,  but  the  amnesty  voted  by  the  Chambers  in  1900  pre- 
vented the  prosecution  of  those  who  had  gravely  sinned  against 
justice  and  honesty. 

58.  Waldeck-Rousseau,  who  was  Prime  Minister  in  1899, 
had  been  stirred  by  the  scenes  of  disorder  which  had  marked 
the  election  of  President  Loubet  at  the  beginning  of  the  year. 
He  determined  to  make  an  end  of  those  whom  he  called  mo'ines 
Ugueurs  and  mohics  (Taffmres  (Leaguers  and  commercial  monks). 
Various  circumstances  led  to  a  regrettable  increase  in  the  rigour 
of  his  early  proposals.  Emile  Combes,  who  succeeded  him  as 
minister,  was  not  a  man  to  be  content  with  half- measures.  This 
time  the  non-authorised  congregations  were  really  dispersed. 
It  might  have  been  well  had  an  exception  been  made  in  favour 
of  many  inoffensive,  and  even  useful,  congregations.  In  1905 
the  Chambers  passed  a  law  for  the  separation  of  the  Churches 
from  the  State,  which  put  an  end  to  the  Concordat  of  1801. 
But  the  hi  Falloux  of  1850  has  not  been  abrogated,  no  doubt 
because  too  many  respectable  interests  are  still  concerned  in  its 
maintenance. 

59.  In  the  bosom  of  French  Protestantism  the  two  opposite 
tendencies,  obscurantist  and  liberal,  were  represented  by  the 
rival  faculties  of  INIontauban  and  Strasburg.  After  1871  the 
latter  was  transferred  to  Paris.  This  rivalry  gave  rise  to  a 
wretched  occurrence  in  1861,  when  Coquerel,  a  pastor  in  the 
capital  and  an  adherent  of  the  Union  Protestante  Lihcrale,  was 
deprived  by  the  Conseil  Preshyteral  at  the  instance  of  Guizot. 
This  historian,  who  pretended  to  believe  in  miracles,  brought 
about  a  general  synod  at  which  an  obligatory  confession  of  faith 
was  drawn  up.  Orthodox  Protestantism,  which  is  a  caricature 
of  Romanism,  has  again  sown  dissension  in  the  attempt,  made 
at  the  Synod  of  Orleans  in  1906,  to  impose  a  creed  on  the  active 
members  of  the  Protestant  Associations  formed  after  the 
separation  of  the  Churches  from  the  State  (1905). 

•  ■  •  •  • 

60.  At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Switzerland 


FROM   ENCYCLOPAEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     181 

had  engaged  in  a  civil  war,  which  ended  in  the  triumph  of 
the  Reformers  (1712),  although  the  numerical  proportion  of 
Catholics  and  Protestants  remained  practically  unchanged ;  but 
in  Switzerland,  as  elsewhere,  the  Reformed  cantons  were  the 
richest  and  the  most  industrious.  The  recall  of  the  Jesuits  to 
Fribourg  (1818)  was  the  signal  for  intrigues  and  disturbances 
throughout  the  Catholic  cantons.  To  put  an  end  to  these, 
the  Helvetic  Diet  suppressed  the  convents ;  upon  which  the 
Catholic  cantons  formed  a  league,  the  Sonderhund,  in  open 
preparation  for  civil  war.  General  Dufour,  at  the  head  of 
30,000  men,  averted  this  calamity  by  his  energy;  he  took 
possession  of  Fribourg,  which  the  Jesuits  evacuated,  not,  how- 
ever, without  a  sanguinary  encounter,  in  which  the  Catholics 
were  defeated ;  the  Sonderhund  was  dissolved,  and  the  dis- 
affected cantons  submitted.  The  new  Swiss  Constitution  of 
1848,  while  it  proclaimed  liberty  of  association  and  of  worship, 
forbade  the  Jesuits  to  settle  in  the  territory  of  the  Confederation. 
Nevertheless,  they  returned  to  the  Catholic  cantons  after  1858 ; 
the  University  of  Fribourg  belongs  ostensibly  to  the  Dominicans, 
but  the  theology  taught  there  is  that  of  the  Jesuits. 

61.  Thus,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Catholicism  of  the  nineteenth 
century  was  dominated  by  the  Pope  and  the  Jesuits,  always 
closely  united  "  for  the  greater  glory  of  God."  Of  the  20,000 
Jesuits  struck  at  by  the  sentence  of  Clement  XIV.,  the  greater 
part,  secretly  favoured  by  Pius  VL,  took  refuge  in  the  Confra- 
ternities of  the  Heart  of  Jesus,  and  in  those  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Faith,  or  Paccanarists,  founded  by  Father  Paccanari  in  1797.1 

Russia  was  the  only  country  where  they  subsisted  openly. 
Catherine  II.,  who  wanted  them  in  Poland,  even  allowed  them 
to  affiliate  foreign  Jesuits  to  their  body.  Pius  VII.  formally 
re-established  the  order  in  Rome  (1801)  and  in  Sicily  (1804). 
He  restored  it  in  its  entirety  on  August  7,  1814 ;  but  at  first 
the  Jesuits  were  only  received  in  Spain,  Naples,  Sardinia  and 
Modena  ;  even  Austria  and  France  would  not  have  them. 

62.  In  1820,  the  Jesuits  were  banished  from  Russia,  where 

1  Napoleon  to  Fouche  (Dec.  17,  1807) :  "  I  won't  have  any  Fathers  of  the 
Faith,  I  won't  allow  them  to  meddle  with  education,  and  poison  the  mind  of 
youth  by  their  ridiculous  Ultramontane  principles"  (Lecestre,  Lettrcs  inddUcs 
de  XapoUon,  i.  p.  129). 


182     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

their  propaganda  had  alarmed  Greek  Orthodoxy.  Leo  XII. 
consoled  them  for  this  check  by  entrusting  the  Roman  College 
to  them  (1824),  thus  placing  the  entire  education  of  the  clergy 
in  their  hands.  In  1836,  Gregory  XVI.  also  confided  the 
direction  of  the  College  of  the  Propaganda  to  them,  and 
delighted  them  by  the  canonisation  of  Alfonso  of  Liguori,  not 
a  Jesuit  himself,  but  one  of  their  favourite  theologians.  The 
General  of  the  Order,  living  either  at  Fiesole  or  Rome,  became 
known  in  popular  speech  as  the  Black  Pope. 

63.  In  Spain,  the  Jesuits  were  the  mainstay  of  despotism 
until  their  banishment  in  1834  by  the  Queen  Regent,  Maria 
Christina;  they  returned  shoi'tly  afterwards,  notwithstanding 
this  measure.  In  1838  they  established  themselves  in  Austria, 
and  still  dominate  all  the  education  of  the  country.  They  have 
also  regained  their  power  in  Belgium  since  the  Revolution  of 
1830,  which  was  rather  clerical  than  liberal ;  but  here,  in  spite 
of  the  extraordinary  multiplication  of  convents,  the  secular 
clergy  remained  strong  enough  to  counterbalance  the  influence 
of  the  Congregations. 

64.  Louis  XVIII.  would  not  admit  the  Jesuits  ;  but  by  an 
ordinance  of  October  5,  1814,  he  left  the  direction  of  the 
smaller  seminaries  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops,  who  appointed 
Jesuit  professors.  Soon  their  colleges  at  Saint-Acheul  and 
Montrouge,  and  also  a  propagandist  society  founded  by  them 
at  Lyons,  gave  the  Government  a  good  deal  of  anxiety,  and 
provoked  the  ordinance  of  1828.  The  colleges  were  closed. 
The  Revolution  of  1830  expelled  the  Jesuits  again,  not  without 
some  outbreaks  of  popular  violence.  As  usual,  they  returned 
quietly,  and  began  to  be  talked  of  again  in  1838  ;  the  elocpience 
of  one  of  their  number,  Pere  de  Ravignan,  contributed  greatly 
to  their  growing  credit,  which  Eugene  Sue  denounced  as  a 
danger  in  a  famous  novel,  The  Wandering  Jexc.  In  1845  some 
legal  proceedings  made  it  evident  that  the  Jesuits  were  very 
numerous  in  France,  in  spite  of  a  law  which  threatened  them 
with  imprisonment.  The  Chamber  of  Peers  was  alarmed,  and 
Guizot,  then  Prime  Minister,  took  certain  ineffectual  measures 
against  them  ;  the  Second  Republic  was  soon  to  make  them 
reparation. 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     183 

65.  In  spite  of  the  defeat  of  their  party  in  Switzerland,  the 
Jesuits  profited  by  the  Revolution  of  184<8 ;  they  became  the 
directors  of  the  reactionary  policy  of  Pius  IX.  ;  they  acquired 
or  regained  a  preponderating  influence  in  Prussia  and  Austria; 
they  laid  hands  on  education  in  France  (1850).  The  events  of 
1870-71  were  unfavourable  to  them  in  Prussia,  where  they 
were  forbidden  by  a  law  of  1872  to  establish  themselves  ;  but 
in  all  Catholic  countries,  the  close  alliance  of  the  Papacy,  the 
Episcopacy  and  Jesuitism,  uniting  to  suppress  free  thought, 
made  the  Jesuits  the  true  masters  of  the  faithful,  while  the 
Anglo-Saxon  countries  were  once  more  open  to  their  propa- 
ganda. In  the  United  States  and  in  England,  the  Jesuits, 
now  numerous  and  very  active,  have  hitherto  left  public  opinion 
and  parliaments  quite  indifferent  to  their  progress. 

66.  One  of  the  great  sources  of  strength  of  the  Jesuit  Order, 
setting  aside  its  admirable  recruiting  system,  is  the  absence  of 
any  rivalry  between  it  and  the  other  religious  orders.  The 
reconciliation  between  Dominicans  and  Jesuits  has  long  been  an 
accomplished  fact.  Assumptionists,  Redemptorists  or  Liguorists 
are  mere  insti'uments,  sometimes  mere  aliases,  of  the  Jesuits. 
These  have  no  charitable  organisations  ;  their  activities  are  all 
lucrative,  and  even  very  lucrative  ones,  notably  schools  for  the 
well-to-do  classes ;  thus  the  Jesuits  are  richer  than  all  the  other 
orders,  and  can  command  support  among  the  laity  when  they 
require  it.  Nearly  the  whole  of  the  Catholic  Press  in  both 
hemispheres  is  controlled  by  them,  and  they  have  affiliated 
members  even  in  the  Liberal  Press.  In  spite  of  the  measures 
taken  against  them  in  France,  the  Jesuits  rival  the  bureaucracy 
(in  which  their  influence  has  long  been  and  still  remains 
powerful)  as  the  best  organised  power  in  the  country. 

67.  The  Vatican  Council  ended  in  the  triumph  of  the  Jesuits. 
After  the  proclamation  of  Papal  Infallibility  (July  18,  1870), 
in  spite  of  the  opposition  or  abstention  of  many  bishops, 
Pius  IX.  embarked  upon  reprisals  against  the  dissentient 
German  bishops  ;  abandoned  by  their  Governments,  which  were 
absorbed  in  the  war,  they  submitted.  The  learned  Canon 
Dollinger  (1799-1890)  then   organised  the  opposition  of  Old 


184      A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Catholics  at  Munich  (April  1871) ;  they  formed  themselves  into 
associations  for  worship,  choosing  for  their  bishop  Reinkens, 
professor  of  theology  at  Breslau  (1873)  who  was  consecrated  by 
a  Dutch  Jansenist  bishop.  The  Old  Catholics  were  recognised 
by  several  of  the  German  States,  and  penetrated  into  Switzer- 
land ;  but  the  celebration  of  worship  in  the  orthodox  Catholic 
churches  set  up  grave  difficulties,  which  were  further  increased 
by  Germany's  reaction  in  favour  of  Leo  XIII. 's  policy,  after 
the  check  administered  to  Bismarck's  attempt  to  humiliate 
Catholicism  {Kulturhampf,  1872-79).  There  is  no  longer 
faith  enough  in  Western  Europe  to  make  the  creation  of  a  new 
religion  possible ;  the  Old  Catholics  subsist,  but  with  difficulty, 
and  in  small  numbers.  Reinken's  successor,  Bishop  Weber 
(1896),  was  recognised  only  by  Prussia,  Hesse  and  the  Grand 
Duchy  of  Baden  ;  there  was  also  an  Old  Catholic  Bishop  at 
Berne,  Eduard  Herzog. 

68.  The  French  bishops  of  the  opposition,  Darboy  and 
Dupanloup,  had  submitted  in  1870,  when  men's  minds  were 
oppressed  by  other  and  more  cruel  preoccupations.  In  1869,  a 
former  Barefooted  Carmelite,  Hyacinthe  Loyson,  after  a  brilliant 
career  as  a  preacher,  was  censured  on  several  occasions  for  the 
freedom  of  his  opinions.  In  1871  he  went  to  see  Dollinger  at 
Munich,  and  tried  to  create  a  Church  in  France  analogous  to  the 
Anglican  Church.  Loyson,  who  married  in  1872,  remained  to 
an  advanced  old  age  the  disciple  of  truth  and  justice,  those 
consolations  of  the  disillusioned  theologian  ;  but  his  attempt  at 
schism  was  even  less  successful  than  that  of  the  German  Old 
Catholics. 

69.  Leo  XIII.  (1878-1903)  was  a  skilful  diplomatist,  and 
showed  that  the  prestige  of  the  Holy  See  had  as  a  fact  gained 
by  abolition  of  a  temporal  power  in  which  its  spiritual  dignity 
was  often  compromised.  His  successes  in  the  United  States,  in 
England,  in  France,  in  Germany,  and  even  in  Italy  itself,  belong 
more  especially  to  political  history  ;  it  will  be  sufficient  to  allude 
to  them  here.  Not  only  did  the  KulturJcampf  directed  against 
Catholicism  by  Bismarck  end  in  the  victory  of  Leo  XIII.,  but 
the  German  Catholic  party,  known  as  the  Centre,  became  the 
pivot  of  the  policy  of  the  Empire.    In  France  the  Pope  enjoined 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     185 

the  Catholics  to  rally  to  the  Republic,  a  measure  which  put  a 
great  number  of  the  highest  posts  in  the  State  into  the  hands 
of  Clericals  calling  themselves  Republicans  ;  the  success  of  this 
"  turning  movement  "  was  so  complete  that  but  for  the  Dreyfus 
affair,  in  which  the  French  Church  embarked  on  a  fatal  course, 
France  would  have  become  a  Clerical  Republic.  In  the  domain  of 
religion,  Leo  XIII.  did  not  favour  Modernism,  but  he  was  careful 
not  to  adopt  a  bellicose  attitude  towards  it.  His  successor, 
Pius  X.  (1903-14)  was  the  antithesis  of  a  clever  politician  ; 
he  was  simply  an  honest  parish  priest.  Bossuet  said  of  Pope 
Innocent  XI. :  "  Good  intentions  combined  with  a  limited  in- 
telligence are  fatal  in  high  places."  Guided  by  fanatical  and 
ill-informed  Spanish  cardinals,  Pius  harshly  condemned  the 
Modernists  in  France  and  Italy,  as  well  as  in  Germany ;  he 
refused  the  conciliatory  offers  of  the  French  Government,  pro- 
hibited the  formation  of  Catholic  associations  for  worship, 
which  were  readily  admitted  by  French  Protestants,  and  even 
by  the  majority  of  Catholic  bishops,  and  thus  caused  the 
partial  ruin  of  the  Church  of  France ;  separated  from  the  State 
since  1905,  she  has  great  difficulty  in  finding  means  of  sub- 
sistence, and  in  recruiting  the  secular  clergy  for  the  parishes. 
Reacting  against  the  prudent  policy  of  his  predecessor,  Pius  X. 
subjected  the  ecclesiastics  to  a  military  discipline,  threatening 
the  daily  bread  of  the  recalcitrant,  and  organising  a  system  of 
espionage  which  transformed  even  the  moderates  into  suspects. 
However,  one  good  result  of  the  disestablishment,  from  the 
Catholic  point  of  view,  has  been  to  intensify  the  intercourse 
between  the  faithful  and  the  clergy,  the  latter  being  obliged  to 
pay  frequent  visits  and  make  individual  appeals  in  order  to 
collect  the  necessary  funds  for  public  worship,  schools,  pensions 
for  aged  priests  and  other  useful  work  on  the  same  lines. 

70.  The  influence  of  the  Order  of  Jesus  is  not  only  exercised 
upon  dogma,  upon  politics  and  upon  social  life  ;  it  penetrates 
all  the  religious  manifestations  of  Catholicism.  The  senti- 
mental or  puerile  aberrations  of  the  worship  of  the  Virgin 
and  the  saints  (as,  for  instance,  of  St.  Anthony  of  Padua,  who 
causes   lost   objects    to  be  found),  the   exploitation    of  relics, 


186     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

amulets  and  miraculous  springs,  have  been  established  or 
developed  under  its  protection.  But  all  that  is  food  for  the 
ignorant  masses  only,  and  the  no  less  ignorant  middle  classes. 
The  same  Order  supports  in  Brussels  a  small  group  of  very 
learned  Jesuits  called  Bollandists  (in  memory  of  that  giant  of 
knowledge,  John  Bolland,  1596-1665),  intrusted  with  the 
publication  of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints  {Acta  Sanctorum^  62 
folios,  in  progress)  and  of  a  periodical,  Analecta  Bollandiana, 
which  has  done  more  than  all  lay  criticism  to  uproot  baseless 
legends  and  expose  pious  frauds.  This  is  another  and  little 
known  aspect  of  Jesuitism,  in  relation  to  the  history  of  religion 
and  the  vindication  of  truth. 

71.  The  worship  of  St.  Joseph,  which  was  non-existent  in 
the  Middle  Ages  and  during  the  Renaissance,  grew  up  under  the 
Jesuit  influence  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Pius  IX.  raised  St. 
Joseph  to  the  rank  of  a  patron  of  the  Catholic  Church,  above 
the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul  (1870) ;  this  promotion  was  con- 
firmed by  Leo  XIII.  (1889).  To  the  Christian  conception  of 
the  Trinity,  the  Jesuits  have  added  one  which  is  expressed  by 
the  formula  JMJ — that  is  to  say,  Jesus,  Mary,  Joseph.  It  has 
practically  superseded  the  other.  God  is  too  lofty,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit  too  immaterial ;  the  people  must  have  white  idols, 
with  plenty  of  gold,  pink  and  blue.  An  aristocratic  contempt 
for  the  devout  masses  is  a  ruling  sentiment  among  the  Jesuits, 
one  they  shared  with  their  pupil  Voltaire. 

72.  The  Jesuits  also  instituted  the  worship  of  the  Sacred 
Heart  of  Jesus,  beside  which  that  of  the  Pure  Heart  of  Mary 
holds  but  a  secondary  place.  A  girl-mystic.  Marguerite  or 
Marie  Alacoque,  had  a  vision  of  the  bleeding  heart  of  Jesus 
Christ  (1675) ;  she  gave  Him  hers,  and  received  His  in  exchange. 
Her  Jesuit  confessor,  Pere  La  Colombiere,  exploited  the  utter- 
ances of  this  mad  woman,  and  founded  a  new  cult,  which  Rome 
at  first  energetically  condemned.  But  special  confraternities 
propagated  Cordkolism  under  the  protection  of  the  Jesuits, 
mainly  in  France,  Germany  and  Poland,  in  spite  of  the  attacks 
of  the  Jansenists.  Pius  VI.  yielded  to  the  popular  idolatry,  and 
sanctioned  the  worship.  Pius  IX.  went  still  further  ;  he  insti- 
tuted the  Feast  of  the  Sacred  Heart  for  the  whole  Church,  and 


FROM   ENCYCLOPAEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     187 

proclaimed  the  beatification  of  Marie  Alacoque  (1864).  The 
Church  had  originally  insisted  on  the  symbolic  character  of  the 
heart,  but  the  mystic  materialism  of  the  Jesuits,  harmonising 
with  the  spirit  of  the  nineteenth  century,  proposed  the  adoration 
of  the  actual  heart  of  the  Saviour.  This  conception,  a  sur- 
vival fi'om  very  primitive  religion,  was  approved  by  Pius  IX. 
Painted  images  of  the  Sacred  Heart  have  found  their  way  into 
all  the  churches.  The  National  Assembly  of  1871  pronounced 
the  construction  of  a  basilica  at  Montmartre,  dedicated  to  the 
Sacred  Heart,  to  be  a  work  of  public  utility.  It  was  begun  in 
1875,  and  the  white  mass  of  its  buildings  now  towers  over 
Paris  from  the  height.  It  will  stand  to  future  ages  as  a  monu- 
ment of  Jesuist  theology,  and  of  the  illimitable  credulity  of  the 
human  mind. 

73.  The  increased  facilities  of  communication  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  multiplied  pilgrimages  and  brought  increasing 
crowds  to  privileged  altars,  to  the  relics  of  the  saints  and  to 
healing  springs.  Commercial  exploitation  of  faith  has  kept 
pace  with  the  mystic  exaltation  which  has  been  stimulated  by 
every  possible  means.  Those  who  wish  for  information  on  this 
score  should  read  Paul  Parfait's  Dossier  des  Pclerinages.  The 
Jesuits  have  been  foremost  among  the  religious  orders  which 
have  encouraged  these  practices  :  the  learned  and  pacific  orders, 
such  as  the  Benedictines  and  the  Oratorians,  have  held  signifi- 
cantly aloof  In  France  the  mania  for  pilgrimages  developed 
chiefiy  under  the  Third  Republic  ;  a  special  newspaper,  Le 
Pelerin  {The  Pilgrim),  with  a  circulation  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands, fans  the  ardour  of  the  ignorant  by  tales  of  miracles  ;  and 
wealthy  society — Voltairian  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  Jesuitical  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth — adopts 
these  debased  forms  of  piety  in  fear  of  the  political  and  social 
conse(]uences  of  free-thought. 

74.  In  1846,  a  fanatic,  one  Mdlle.  de  la  Merliere,  dressed 
herself  in  yellow  robes  and  a  sugar-loaf  hat,  and  "  appeared  "" 
on  the  mountain  of  La  Salette  (Isere)  to  two  little  shepherds, 
revealing  herself  to  them  as  the  Blessed  Virgin.  A  subsequent 
legal  inquiry  exposed  the  fraud,  against  which  the  Cardinal 
Archbishop  of  Lyons  had  protested  from  the  first.    Nevertheless, 


188     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

the  canonical  examination  resulted  in  the  confirmation  of  the 
miracle  by  the  Bishop  of  Grenoble  in  1847.  A  congregation 
was  founded  to  exploit  it.  Pilgrimages  began,  and  still  con- 
tinue, to  La  Salette,  where  a  certain  spring  was  supposed  to 
work  miraculous  cures. 

75.  "  Three  years  after  the  day  on  which,  by  a  solemn  act  of 
Pius  IX.,  the  Virgin  was  declared  free  from  the  taint  of  original 
sin,  she  appeared  in  a  little  town  of  the  French  Pyrenees  to  a 
child  of  the  people.  When  asked  her  name,  she  replied  :  '  /  am 
the  Immaculate  Conception.''  This  was  the  definition  of  heaven 
following  on  that  of  earth.  A  doctrine  had  been  taught  to 
the  world  by  the  Church  :  God  put  His  sign  manual  upon  it !  "  ^ 
Bernadette  Soubirous,  the  little  girl  to  whom  the  Virgin  Mary 
declared  that  her  name  was  that  of  a  dogma,  an  obvious 
absurdity,^  saiv  the  Virgin  several  times  from  Februai-y  to  July, 
1858  ;  she  lived  twenty  years  after  this,  supported  by  the  nuns 
"  as  a  destitute  sick  person,"  but  the  celestial  vision  "  never 
again  appeared  to  dazzle  and  delight  her  eyes." 

Ecclesiastical  authority  did  not  neglect  this  striking  miracle. 
It  was,  indeed,  forced  to  take  action  by  popular  credulity,  which 
made  the  grotto  a  place  of  pilgrimage.  Very  soon  a  report  that 
the  water  of  the  spring  cured  all  sorts  of  diseases  found  credence, 
and  religious  commerce  took  the  matter  in  hand.  The  grotto 
became  a  sanctuary  over  which  an  imposing  church  was  built. 
The  little  town  was  covered  with  hotels  and  boardins-houses ; 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  pilgrims  flocked  to  it,  and  a  great 
number  of  miraculous  cures  after  immersion  in  the  piscina  were 
certified.  Cures  equally  wonderful  had  been  recorded  twenty 
centuries  before  of  sufferers  issuing  from  ^the  dormitories  of 
Asklepios  at  Epidaurus  and  Cos;  whether  they  were  due  to 
suggestion  or  to  the  radio-active  qualities  of  the  water  is  a 
scientific,    not    a   religious,    question.     The    "  Fathers   of    the 

^  G.  Bertrin,  Histoire  critique  (sic)  des  ivenements  des  Lourdes,  new  ed. 
Paris,  1908. 

*  The  error  may  be  explained  by  a  confusion  arising  out  of  the  inscription 
on  a  devotional  print.  Coloured  pictures  of  the  Virgin  inscribed  The  Im- 
maculate Coyiceplion  have  been  widely  circulated,  especially  since  the  year  1852, 
when  the  Louvre  acquired  Murillo's  famous  picture  of  this  name  for  the 
enormous  sum  of  61.5,000  fr.  A  confusion  of  the  same  sort  arose  of  old  at 
Athens  (Acts  xvii.  18)  :  the  philosophers  thought  Paul  was  preaching  a  new 
deity,  Ajiastasif,  when  he  announced  the  Resurrection, 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     189 

Grotto""  have  become  very  wealthy,  and  the  Government  is 
indulgent  to  their  traffic,  in  order  not  to  ruin  the  town  of 
Lourdes.  Official  consecration  of  this  worship  was  given  by 
Leo  XIIL,  who  had  a  model  of  tlie  grotto  and  the  church  put 
up  in  the  Vatican  gardens.  But  as  the  Council  of  Trent 
decided  at  its  twenty-fifth  session  that  all  new  miracles  should  be 
recognised  and  approved  by  the  bishops  before  being  published 
to  the  world,  cases  of  healing  are  always  submitted  to  the 
Church.  On  June  14,  1908,  the  Parisian  Sema'me  relig'ieuse 
published  an  ordinance  of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  Mgr. 
Amette,  declaring  that  the  cures  of  five  young  girls  at  Lourdes, 
from  1891  to  1899,  which  had  been  studied  with  the  utmost 
attention  by  the  connnissioners,  were  to  be  attributed  to  a 
special  intervention  of  God,  brought  about  by  the  intercession 
of  the  Virgin,  and  consequently  were  to  be  accounted  miracles.  ^ 

76.  Those  whose  piety  takes  them  to  Lourdes  are  not  seek- 
ing their  salvation  in  the  world  to  come,  or  preparing  a  blessed 
eternity  for  themselves  ;  their  most  pressing  preoccupations  are 
purely  secular  and  terrestrial ;  they  ask  for  health  and  long 
life.  The  Church  of  the  sixteenth  century  sold  indulgences : 
she  abused  this  traffic,  and  the  merchandise  lost  its  value.  In 
the  twentieth  century,  at  Lourdes  and  elsewhere,  she  no  longer 
claims  to  give  dispensation  from  Purgatory,  but  to  put  off  the 
day  of  reckoning  ;  she  opposes  sacerdotal  to  secular  medicine, 
and  thus,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  returns  to  the  errors  of 
pagan  materialism. 

•  •  «  •  « 

77.  Mysticism,  a  supposed  communion  with  God  in  ecstasy, 
is  a  chronic  delusion  of  the  human  heart.  The  Church  has 
beatified  or  canonised  certain  mystics,  but  she  has  silenced  many 
more.  The  Spanish  Inquisition  showed  a  good  deal  of  sense  in 
this  connection  ;  it  treated  mystics  as  impostors  rather  than  as 
persons  possessed.  One  of  the  benefits  of  Christianity  as 
organised  into  Churches  has  been  to  regulate  mysticism  and  the 
superstitions  to   which   it  gives  rise  ;  wherever  official  religion 

^  From  1905  to  October  1908,  a  score  of  episcopal  ordinances  of  this  kind 
were  promulgated  ;  a  certain  number  of  cures  are  always  under  canonical 
consideration. 


190     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

has  lost  its  power,  individual  magic  and  charlatanism  have 
become  rampant.  This  phenomenon  was  noticeable  in  France 
towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  clairvoyants 
and  swindlers  like  the  Comte  de  St.  Germain  {d.  1784),  Cag- 
liostro  {d.  1795),  St.  Martin  {d.  1803),  and  Mesmer  {d.  1815), 
acquired  an  amazing  ascendancy  in  a  society  which  was  reading 
Voltaire,  but  was  not  content  with  that. 

78.  The  most  influential  of  eighteenth-century  mystics  was 
the  learned  Swede  Emmanuel  Swedenborg,  the  son  of  a  clergy- 
man (1688-1722).  His  followers  still  exist  as  members  of  the 
Church  of  New  Jerusalem.  After  having  done  good  service  in 
many  branches  of  natural  sciences,  where  he  sometimes  showed 
the  way  to  Buffbn,  Laplace  and  Goethe,  Swedenborg  had  his 
first  vision  in  1743.  From  1745  onwards  he  gave  himself 
up  entirely  to  theosophy,  which  means  individual  theology,  in 
contrast  with  that  of  the  accepted  creeds.  In  1749  he  wrote  as 
follows :  "  It  has  been  granted  to  me,  now  for  several  years,  to 
be  constantly  and  uninterruptedly  in  company  with  spirits  and 
angels  ...  I  have  thus  been  instructed  concerning  the  state 
of  souls  after  death."  Later  on,  he  conversed  with  Jesus,  the 
Apostle  Paul,  Luther  and  others.  His  diary  for  1744,  dis- 
covered in  1858,  shows  clearly  that  he  was  deranged  and 
probably  remained  so ;  but  there  was  little  of  a  miracle- 
monger  or  of  a  charlatan  about  him.  His  theology,  founded 
not  only  on  revelation,  but  on  allegorical  interpretation  of 
Scripture,  may  even  be  called  reasonable  and  humane  when 
compared  with  the  orthodox  teaching  on  salvation,  damnation 
and  the  like.  Swedenborg  believed  himself  to  be  the  herald 
of  the  Second  Coming.  Jesus  had,  in  fact,  returned,  having 
paid  a  visit  to  Swedenborg.  "All  rehgion,"  he  said,  "has 
relation  to  life,  and  the  life  of  religion  is  to  do  good."  That 
warm  desire  to  benefit  humanity  associates  him,  in  spite  of  his 
vagaries  and  dreams,  with  the  more  temperate  philosophers  of 
his  age. 

79.  Territory  gained  by  science  is  always  lost  to  dogmatic 
religion.  Nevertheless,  certain  writers  have  tried  to  add  lustre 
to  the  latter  by  the,  as  yet,  very  obscure  phenomena  which 
belong,  broadly  speaking,  to  the  domain  of  spiritualism^  because 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     191 

they  are  attributed  to  the  intervention  of  spirits.  The  Roman 
Church  has  wisely  opposed  this  tendency.  She  only  admits  the 
marvels  that  are  under  her  own  control.  All  the  rest  are  the 
work  of  the  devil,  or  of  human  rascality.  Magic,  be  it  white  or 
black,  cannot  be  the  handmaid  of  Religion. 

Every  one  has  heard  of  table-turning,  spirit-rapping,  evo- 
cations of  the  dead,  who  appear  as  phantoms  and  dictate 
answers  and  revelations  to  mediums.  These  mediums,  several  of 
whom  have  become  famous  in  our  times — the  Englishman, 
Daniel  Dunglas  Home,  for  instance,  who  deceived  the  famous 
scientist  Crookes,  and  Eusapia  Paladino,  who  cheated  many 
others — were  charlatans  who  had  recourse  to  subtle  methods 
of  fraud,  and  always  refused  to  operate  in  daylight  and  in  the 
presence  of  learned  bodies  ;  but  the  progress  of  science,  and 
more  especially  the  study  of  nervous  phenomena,  have  brought 
to  light  physiological  or  psychological  facts  which  must  neces- 
sarily have  seemed  miraculous  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
even  later.  Thus,  it  has  been  shown  that  nervous  persons 
may  be  thrown  into  a  hypnotic  sleep ;  some  even  assert  that, 
receiving  orders  in  this  state,  they  will  carry  them  out  on 
waking.  It  has  also  been  said  that  persons  of  this  tempera- 
ment are  amenable  to  suggestions  made  at  a  distance.  The 
power  of  suggestion  of  some  persons  is  undeniable,  and  has 
alread}'^  effected  cures  which  resemble  those  obtained  by 
pilgrimages  and  relics.  The  facts  of  telepathy — that  is  to  say, 
of  communications  from  a  distance,  such  as  a  sudden  vision, 
sometimes  confirmed  by  the  event,  of  the  death  of  a  friend — 
are  not  yet  scientifically  established  ;  but,  after  all,  they  do  not 
seem  any  more  extraordinary  than  the  experiments  of  wireless 
telegraphy. 

80.  When  the  spirits  dogmatise,  they  show  a  disposition  to 
amalgamate  existing  religions,  in  order  to  rise  to  forms  they 
hold  to  be  superior.  The  most  striking  instance  of  this  syn- 
cretism in  the  nineteenth  century  is  furnished  by  the  so-called 
Thcosophists  or  Occultists,  founded  at  New  York  about  1875  by 
Colonel  Olcott  (d.  1906)  and  Helena  Blavatsky  (1831-1891). 
This  sect,  which  has  met  with  increasing  favour,  claims 
to   combine   Buddhism,  Platonism,   Christianity,   and    certain 


192     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

mysterious  doctrines,  such  as  the  Jewish  Kabbalah.  The 
Russian  lady  pretended  to  derive  her  knowledge  from  two 
Tibetan  sages,  with  whom  she  enjoyed  instantaneous  com- 
munication ;  but  her  works  are  full  of  extracts  from  printed 
books  and  not  always  reliable  translations.  Indian  and  other 
philosophies  had  better  be  studied  at  first  hand. 

81.  In  the  Middle  Ages  there  were,  in  addition  to  the 
stationary  guilds  of  masons,  a  number  of  free-masons,  who 
travelled  from  town  to  town  ;  they  constituted,  it  is  said,  a 
confraternity  whose  headquarters  were  at  Strasburg.  These 
associations  existed  in  England  longer  than  elsewhere,  and  the 
Great  Fire  of  London  {\<6QQi\  which  necessitated  the  rebuilding 
of  the  city,  increased  their  activity.  After  the  completion  of 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral  (1717),  the  last  four  groups  of  masons 
founded  a  Grand  Lodge  in  London,  designed,  not  for  the 
furtherance  of  their  calling,  but  for  the  amelioration  of  the 
moral  and  material  condition  of  man.  Side  by  side  with  and 
above  temples  of  stone,  was  to  rise  the  spiritual  temple  of 
humanity.  From  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  members 
who  were  not  masons  had  been  admitted  to  these  conventicles — 
a  modification  of  the  primitive  character  of  the  institution. 
But  certain  features  were  preserved  with  a  jealous  and,  indeed, 
pedantic  care :  such  were  the  distinctions  between  masters, 
associates  and  apprentices,  the  exclusion  of  non-members,  and 
the  oath  never  to  reveal  the  proceedings  in  the  lodges.  The 
constitution  of  the  Freemasons  was  the  work  of  the  preacher 
James  Anderson.  It  binds  its  adherents  to  respect  for  morality, 
humanity,  and  the  fatherland ;  each  member  may  continue  to 
practise  his  special  religion,  but  the  connnunity  is  further  to 
hold  collectively  the  religious  principles  of  all  mankind,  the 
rest  being  accounted  merely  individual  opinion.  The  religion 
of  English  Freemasonry  is,  accordingly,  a  sort  of  humanitarian 
deism,  which  found,  and  still  finds,  many  adherents  in  Great 
Britain. 

82,  A  few  English  noblemen  established  the  first  Lodge  in 
Paris  in  1725 ;  in  spite  of  the  interdict  of  Louis  XV.  (1737), 
it  made  numerous  recruits.  In  1733  a  Lodge  was  founded 
at  Florence  and  at  Boston,  and  in  1737  at    Hamburg.     The 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     193 

Hamburg  Lodge  included  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia,  after- 
wards Frederick  the  Great,  among  its  members.  After  his 
accession,  he  created  a  Lodge  at  Berhn,  and  became  its  Grand 
Master.  Since  this  period,  all  the  Kings  of  Prussia  down  to 
William  II,  have  presided  over  this  Lodge.  William  II.  de- 
clined the  office,  but  nominated  Prince  Frederick  Leopold  of 
Prussia  as  his  substitute.  In  the  course  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  Freemasonry  took  root  in  all  European  countries  and 
also  in  North  America.  Catholicism  naturally  could  not 
tolerate  a  society  of  religious  tendencies  which  ignored  it ;  the 
Pope  condemned  Freemasonry  as  early  as  1738.  An  edict  of 
the  Cardinal  Secretary  of  State  of  January  14,  1739,  pro- 
nounced sentence  of  death  not  only  against  Freemasons,  but 
against  all  who  should  seek  admittance  to  the  order,  and  all 
who  should  let  premises  to  the  association.^  The  Papacy  has 
never  ceased  the  renewal  of  these  prohibitions.  Leo  XIII. 
solemnly  reiterated  them  in  his  Encyclical  of  April  20,  1884. 

83.  Shortly  after  this,  a  Frenchman  who  had  written  some 
scurrilous  pamphlets  against  the  Church,  under  the  pseudonym 
of  Leo  Taxil,  declared  himself  a  convert  to  Catholicism,  and 
offered   to   reveal    the   secrets    of  Freemasonry.     He   had   his 
information,  he  declared,  from  a  young  American,  Miss  Diana 
Vaughan,  who  had  been  initiated  into  all  the  details  of  the 
Satanic  rites  performed  in  the  Lodges.     Taxil  published  several 
absurd  books,  full  of  horrors  and  divagations  borrowed  from 
ancient  trials  for  witchcraft ;  they  had  an  immense  success  in 
CathoHc  circles.     Cardinal  Parocchi  sent  the  Papal  benediction 
to    Miss   Vaughan.     In    1896,  an    international    Anti-Masonic 
Congress  was  held  at  Trent.     As  doubts  were  here  cast  upon 
Leo  Taxil's  statements,  the  rascal  thought  it  better  to  unmask 
himself.     He  summoned  a  large  meeting  at  Paris,  and  there,  to 
the  great  scandal  of  the  assembled  priests  and    clericals,  he 
declared  that  the  Satanic  Diana  Vaughan  had  never   existed, 
and  that  he  had  been  deceiving  the   Roman  Church  for   ten 
years  (April  19,  1897).     The  laugh  was  hardly  on  the  side  of 
the  Jesuits  and  their  friends,  the  protectors  or  dupes  of  Leo 
Taxil. 

^  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition  in  Spain,  vol.  iv.  p.  297. 
O 


194    A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

84.  Freemasonry  was  complicated  and  perverted  by  all  kinds 
of  affectations  and  impostures  in  the  course  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Superior  grades  were  created,  such  as  the  Templai's, 
the  Rosicrucians  and  the  Egyptian  Masons  ;  absurd  pretensions 
were  formulated,  connecting  these  with  the  Knights  Templars, 
the  medieval  Rosicrucians,  and  the  mystic  teachings  of  the 
Egyptian  priesthood.  The  Egyptian  or  Coptic  Order  was 
founded  by  Joseph  Balsamo  {d.  1795),  the  soi-disant  Count 
Cagliostro.  Spiritualism,  the  search  for  the  philosopher's  stone, 
and  innumerable  other  chimeras  were  grafted  on  to  Masonic 
Deism  and  its  principles  of  tolerant  philanthropy.  Fortunately, 
most  of  the  Lodges  held  aloof  from  these  follies. 

85.  English  Freemasonry  separated  from  French  Free- 
masonry in  1877,  when  the  latter  pronounced  a  belief  in  God 
to  be  non-essential.  In  England,  Scotland  and  Northern 
Germany,  the  Masonic  Lodges  have  remained  merely  centres 
of  humanitarian  philosophy ;  in  France,  from  the  Revolution 
onwards,  they  have  played  a  certain  political  part,  which  has, 
however,  been  greatly  exaggerated  by  their  enemies.  In  1903, 
General  Andre,  Minister  of  War,  a  free-thinker,  but  not  himself 
a  Freemason,  was  imprudent  enough  to  ask  the  provincial 
Lodges  to  furnish  reports  on  the  religious  opinions  of  officers 
in  the  array.  This  system  of  denunciation  was  betrayed  to  the 
clericals  by  a  defaulting  clerk  of  the  Grand  Orient  of  Paris ; 
the  result  was  the  so-called  scandal  of  the  Fklies  {i.e.,  dockets), 
which  showed  that  it  is  easier  to  combat  Clericalism  than  to 
break  with  the  tradition  it  has  instilled. 

86.  A  similar  mania  (intelligible  enough,  indeed)  for  imitat- 
ing Catholicism  while  claiming  complete  emancipation  from 
its  influence,  appears  throughout  the  nineteenth  century  in 
rationalist  sects  with  a  pi'actical  philosophy,  tending  to  the 
material  and  spiritual  amelioration  of  man.  Though  the 
Comte  de  St.  Simon,  the  founder  of  Saint-Simonism,  was  content 
to  be  a  prophet,  his  disciples,  Bazard  and  Enfantin,  behaved 
like  pontiffs  or  bonzes.  Auguste  Comte,  the  founder  of 
Positivism,  in  his  Sijsthne  de  Politique  positive,  sets  forth  a 
social  programme  almost  identical  with  the  conventual  reg-ime 
established  by  the  Jesuits  in  Paraguay.     He  even  sought    to 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     195 

enrich  Positivism  with  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  and  the  saints  ; 
his  Virgin,  however,  was  to  be  his  dead  friend,  Clotilde  de  Vaux, 
his  "Sainte  Clotilde,"  and  his  saints  the  illustrious  men,  or 
men  he  considered  illustrious,  whose  grotesque  nomenclature 
encumbers  the  Positivist  calendar.^  The  basis  of  Fourierism 
(Fourier,  d.  1837)  also  rests  upon  medieval  Catholicism  ;  its 
phalansteries  are  closely  akin  to  monasteries.  Even  the  Socialism 
of  Karl  Marx's  disciples  betrays  the  same  intellectual  habits,  the 
fruits  of  a  long  apprenticeship  to  servitude ;  modern  Socialists 
have  pontiffs,  councils  which  excommunicate,  credos  they  claim 
to  impose,  a  discipline  no  less  tyrannical  than  that  of  the  Jesuits. 
Among  them  there  are  persons  who  think  themselves  revolu- 
tionaries when  they  preach  paradoxes  twenty  centuries  old. 
Thus  the  anti-militarist  crotchet  called  Herveism  (once  dear 
to  Professor  G.  Herve  in  France)  is  a  doctrine  of  the  second 
century,  aggravated  by  a  menace  of  civil  war.  It  is  the  mystic 
doctrine  of  non-resistance,  of  abhorrence  of  all  service  but  that 
of  God,  which  the  philosopher  Celsus  made  a  reproach  to  the 
Christians  when  he  exhorted  them  to  unite  with  the  pagans  to 
defend  the  threatened  Empire  against  the  barbarians. ^ 

87.  The  Roman  Church,  which  cannot  afford  to  alienate  the 
middle  classes,  has  hitherto  shown  no  disposition  to  ally  itself 
with  Socialism ;  but  it  has  insisted  on  its  solicitude  for  the 
working  classes.  Leo  XIII.  even  published  an  Encyclical  "  on 
the  condition  of  workmen,""  in  which  he  suggests  as  a  remedy 
for  the  social  evil  "equitable  payment,"  without  saying  how 
this  is  to  be  fixed.  Both  in  France  and  Austria,  indeed, 
Catholics  who  call  themselves  Socialists  are  not  uncommon, 
and  taking  into  account  the  fondness  of  clerical  strategy  for 
"  turning  movements,"  there  may  be  reason  to  distrust  these 
more  extreme  Socialists,  whose  extravagances  may  sometimes 
be  suggested  by  the  party  which  openly  combats  their  views. 

1  I  deal  here  with  Comte  as  a  mystic,  and  am  nob  concerned  with  his 
philosophy,  which  has  exercised  a  legitimate  influence  on  the  modern  mind. 
But  I  may  recall  Huxley's  saying:  "  Positivism  is  the  incongruous  mixture 
of  bad  science  with  eviscerated  papistry."     {Colleclrd  Essays,  vol.  v.,  p.  255.) 

*  ''  We  Christians,"  replied  Origen  {Contra  Celsvm,  viii.  73)  "fight  for  the 
Emperor  even  more  than  do  the  others  ;  it  is  true  that  we  do  not  follow  him 
into  the  field  when  he  orders  us,  but  we  form  an  army  of  piety  for  him,  and 
support  him  by  our  prayers."     This  did  not  satisfy  Emperor  Decius, 


196    A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

In    Protestant    countries,    Socialist    doctrines   have   found 

numerous  adherents  among  the  clergy.     "Christianity  is  the 

theory  of  which  Socialism  is  the  practice,"  said  a  clergyman 

at  the  Pan- Anglican  Conference  in  London  (1908).     The  same 

doctrine  was   taught   by  the  Avant-Garde,  the  organ  of  the 

French  pastors  who  professed    modern    Socialism.     This   is   a 

novel  example  of  the  old  anti-historical  illusion  of  Concordism  ; 

it  consists  in  harmonising,  by  means  of  a  partisan  exegesis,  the 

mystic  conceptions  of  two  thousand  years  ago,  with  the  realistic 

and  practical   ideas  of  reform   which  have  sprung  up  in   the 

industrial  societies  of  our  age.^ 

.  .  .  ■  • 

88.  Together  with  German  Pietism,  the  influence  of  which 
is  even  perceptible  in  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  Voltairian  free- 
thought  had  grown  up,  especially  at  Berlin.     The  reaction  was 
not  Pietist,  but  poetic  and  scientific.     Schleiermacher   (1768- 
1834)  pointed  out  a  new  path  for  the  Reformation,  that  of 
religious  Romanticism,  in  which  sentiment  plays  a  greater  part 
than  dogma,  and  allies  itself  with  the  critical  study  of  history. 
"Religion,"  he  said,  "should  float  about  human  life  hkeasweet 
and  pleasant  melody,  a  vague  but  beneficent  presentiment  of  a 
life  of  dreams  in  which  the  human  soul  can  find  felicity."    This 
was  at  once  to  exalt  religion  and  to  make  it    inoffensive  to 
science,  by  assigning  it  a  separate  sphere.     Schleiermacher,  the 
translator   of    Plato,   the   admirer   of  Spinoza   and   of  Kant, 
encouraged  the  critical  exegesis  of  the  New  Testament.     His 
pupil    Neander,  a  converted   Jew   (1789-1850),   built  up  the 
history  of  primitive  Christianity  on  a  solid  basis.      But  the 
great  German  school  of  exegesis,  that  of  Tiibingen,  was  formed 
more  especially  under  the  influence  of  the  "  doctrine  of  develop- 
ment "  due  to  Hegel,  who  introduced  the  idea  of  evolution  into 
science  before  Darwin.     Anything  I  could  say  of  it  here  would 
be  insufficient,  and  therefore  obscure  ;  but  it  is  well  to  remember 
that   the    scientific  liberty    of  German    criticism    was    mainly 

*  "  There  is  no  more  absurd  error  than  to  represent  Jesua  as  an  apostle  of 
Socialism.  The  exhortation  to  voluntary  abnegation  in  the  Gospel  bore  upon 
the  idea  of  the  approaching  Parousia,  or  Second  Coming  of  Christ  in  Glory ;  it 
was  purely  mystical,  or  rather  at  once  mystical  and  utilitarian,  without  any 
economical  or  social  applioation." — Dide  [a  former  pastor],  La  Fin  des 
Religions,  p.  130. 


FROM   ENCYCLOPAEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     197 

effected  by  the  teaching  of  two  philosophers,  Schleiermacher 
and  Hegel. 

89.  One  of  the  noblest  thinkers  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Alexandre  Vinet  (of  Ouchy,  1797-1847),  holds  a  place  in 
French  Protestantism  analogous  to  that  of  Schleiermacher  in 
Germany.  Less  a  reformer  than  a  religious  initiator,  he  com- 
bated all  forms  of  official  intolerance,  claimed  the  independence 
of  Churches  in  relation  to  the  State,  and  preached  a  pacific 
Christ,  reconciled  to  modern  civilisation,  and  still  living  in  the 
conscience  of  humanity.  This  ideal  has  been  shared  by  many 
superior  minds.  But  one  may  reasonably  ask  which  Christ  they 
mean — the  Christ  of  Mark  or  the  Christ  of  John  ?  They 
must  choose,  for  the  two  are  historically  irreconcilable.  Jesus 
as  he  may  actually  have  lived  and  taught  is  inaccessible  to  us ; 
the  only  concrete  reality  we  have  before  us  is  Christianity,  which 
is  divided  into  many  hostile  sects.  Is  it  not  therefore  simpler 
to  seek  a  moral  law  in  our  consciences,  the  depositories  of  all 
the  experiences  and  teachings  of  the  past,  including  those  of 
Christianity  ? 

•  »  •  •  • 

90.  The  name  Ajnericanism  has  been  given  by  theologians 
to  a  very  broad  form  of  Catholicism  which  was  propagated 
mainly  in  the  United  States  by  Father  Isaac  Hecker,  of  the 
Paulist  Order  {d.  1888).  The  Papacy  has  always  shown  indul- 
gence to  the  Catholicism  of  America,  both  North  and  South, 
on  condition  of  its  making  no  attempt  to  extend  beyond  that 
continent.  About  1890,  Americanism,  of  which  Archbishop 
Ireland  (of  St.  Paul,  Minnesota)  was  the  accepted  high  priest, 
began  to  penetrate  into  Europe.  Its  distinguishing  doctrine 
was  the  characteristically  American  exaltation  of  good  works 
over  faith.  Leo  XIII.  nipped  it  in  the  bud  by  a  letter 
addressed  to  Cardinal  Gibbons  of  Baltimore,  which  brought 
about  the  submission  of  Archbishop  Ireland  (1899).  A  curious 
incident  in  this  connection  was  the  publication  in  the  United 
States  in  1896  of  a  book  by  a  monk.  Father  Zahm,  purporting 
to  reconcile  Darwinism  and  the  Book  of  Genesis.  Its  author  was 
congratulated  by  Leo  XIII.,  but  the  work  was  at  once  "with- 
drawn from  circulation  "  after  its  translation  into  Italian  (1899). 


198     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

The  Pragmatism  of  the  American  psychologist,  William 
James,  responds  to  some  extent  to  the  practical  tendency  of 
Americanism.  Doctrines  are  not,  he  says,  solutions  of  problems, 
but  principles  of  action.  They  must,  therefore,  be  judged  by  their 
fruits,  and  according  to  their  moral  efficacy.  This  conception, 
applied  to  religious  dogmatism,  would  perhaps  sanction  the 
sophism  of  "  beneficent  errors,"  and  contempt  of  the  historical 
criticism  which  seeks  to  combat  them, 

91.  The  last  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  witnessed  the 
rise,  especially  in  France,  of  the  momentous  Catholic  movement 
commonly  called  Modernism.  In  its  general  outlook  it  is 
related  to  Newman,  and  his  doctrine  o^  development ;  but 
Modernism  is  something  more  and  something  better  than  a 
religious  philosophy.  It  is  the  assimilation  of  criticism  by 
orthodox  Catholicism.  As  such,  it  is  essentially  French,  for 
it  may  claim  descent  from  Richard  Simon,  the  real  founder, 
together  with  Spinoza,  of  critical  exegesis  of  the  Scriptures. 
This  science,  which  was  received  with  suspicion  in  France,  passed 
into  Germany,  and  flourished  there  in  the  Protestant  Univer- 
sities from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  onwards.  The 
most  famous,  if  not  the  most  readable  book  it  has  produced,  is 
David  Strauss's  celebrated  Life  of  Jesus,  translated  into  English 
by  "George  Eliot,"  and  into  French  by  Littre.  An  Alsatian 
Protestant,  Edouard  Reuss,  a  scholar  of  the  highest  rank,  and 
Michel  Nicolas,  a  pastor  of  Nimes,  who  held  a  professorship  at 
Montauban,  made  an  attempt  to  popularise  these  studies  in 
France;  but  the  general  public  and  the  Catholic  seminaries 
remained  impenetrable,  in  spite  of  the  sensation  created  by 
Ernest  Renan's  Life  of  Jesus.  The  author's  lectureship  at  the 
College  de  France  was  suppressed  because  he  contested  the 
divinity  of  Christ  (1862).  Religious  teaching  continued  to  be 
very  antiquated  in  the  seminaries,  dwelling  complacently  on  the 
puerilities  of  Concordism.  Strange  to  say,  reform  has  come, 
not  from  the  laity,  but  from  the  Church  herself.  The  Catholic 
Institute  of  Paris  was  founded  in  1875,  and  the  Abbe  Duchesne, 
still  a  young  man,  was  appointed  professor  of  sacred  history. 
Duchesne,  prudent  and  discreet,  wrote  in  general  on  non- 
scriptural   subjects,    but    he   nevertheless   inculcated   a   severe 


FROM   ENCYCLOPAEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     199 

scientific  method  among  his  pupils.  He  himself  applied  it, 
exciting  the  acrimonious  disapproval  of  the  orthodox,  in  refuting 
the  absurd  legends  of  the  Apostolic  origin  of  the  French 
Churches,  These  had  been  condemned  as  puerile  even  by  the 
pious  Tillemont  (1637-1698),  but  they  had  found  favour  again 
as  a  result  of  the  debasement  of  theological  study,  and  the 
ingenuous  credulity  of  hagiographers. 

92.  One  of  Duchesne's  pupils,  the  Abbe  Loisy  {b.  1857),  a 
Hebrew  scholar  and  an  Assyriologist,  made  a  very  brilliant 
debiit^  and  was  soon  himself  nominated  a  professor  of  exegesis  at 
the  Catholic  Institute.  About  the  year  1890  this  young  priest 
was  the  pride  of  the  Galilean  Church  ;  a  splendid  future  seemed 
assured  to  him.  But  the  orthodox,  and  more  especially  the 
Jesuits,  soon  detected  in  his  lectui'es  and  writings  what  they 
called  '' Protestant  infiltrations"  (1892).  When  Mgr.  d'Hulst, 
the  Rector  of  the  Catholic  University,  published  a  liberal  article 
in  the  Correspondant,  in  which  he  proposed  to  abandon  the 
thesis  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Old  Testament  in  scientific  and 
historical  matters,  this  daring  attempt  was  attributed  to  the 
influence  of  Loisy.  As  a  fact,  he  had  nothing  to  do  with 
it,  but  Mgr.  d'Hulst  had  supposed  himself  inspired  by  Loisy's 
ideas.  Leo  XIII.  responded  by  an  Encyclical  on  Scriptural 
studies  (called  Providentisshims),  in  which  the  infallibility  of  the 
Sacred  Books  was  reaffirmed,  in  accordance  with  the  teaching 
of  the  Council  of  Trent,  but  discounted  by  so  many  linguistic 
niceties  that  the  question  was  left  very  much  as  before  (1893). 
This  Pope  was  patient  and  prudent ;  he  knew  that  Loisy  was 
greatly  respected  by  the  French  clergy,  and  he  dreaded  a  revolt. 
Loisy,  though  continually  denounced  by  the  monks  and  canons, 
published  in  1902  his  V^vcmgile  et  VEgiise,  in  which  he 
formulated  his  doctrine  in  reply  to  the  Essence  of  Christianity 
of  Harnack,  a  Protestant  theologian  of  Berlin  ;  this  was  followed 
in  1903  by  his  commentary  on  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  historic 
character  of  which  he  denied.  At  the  same  time,  the  enfant 
terrible  of  the  party,  the  Abbe  Houtin,  gave  the  history  of 
Biblical  study  in  France  with  much  grace  and  a  spice  of  malice. 
An  English  Jesuit,  Tyrrell,  several  German  professors,  and  even 
a  German  Jesuit,  Father  Hummelauer,  manifested  tendencies 


200     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

that  were  disquieting  to  the  orthodox  exegesists  of  the  Sacred 
Books.  Pius  X.,  after  hesitating  for  a  while,  felt  called  upon 
to  act ;  in  1907  he  published  in  rapid  succession  a  decree  of 
the  Inquisition  (Lamentahili)  and  an  Encyclical  (Pascendi), 
which  were  aimed  at  the  very  heart  of  Modernism.  Loisy, 
whose  books  had  already  been  put  upon  the  Index,  was  excom- 
municated, and  soon  after  this  was  elected  professor  of  the 
College  de  France  ;  Tyrrell  was  deprived  of  the  Sacraments,  and 
left,  as  it  were,  on  the  threshold  of  the  Church ;  Hummelauer 
was  reduced  to  silence. 

93.  "  The  Pope  has  spoken — Modernism  is  no  more  !  "  wrote 
Paul  Bourget  with  naive  fervour.  What  greater  insult  could 
he  have  offered  to  the  thousands  of  honest  and  intelligent 
priests  of  the  Catholic  clergy,  who  cannot  change  their  opinions 
as  they  change  their  cassocks,  or,  following  the  example  of  the 
snobs  M.  Bourget  knows  so  well,  accept  without  conviction  the 
credo  of  the  houses  Avhere  they  dine !  Modernism  once  con- 
demned, Rome  exacted  from  the  priests  the  "  antimodernist 
oath  ■" ;  there  remained  no  avowed  Modernists  in  the  Church, 
but  Modernism  only  gained  more  ground,  Iliacos  intra  muros  et 
extra.  Serious  Catholic  writers  on  Scripture  respect  and  occasion- 
ally reiterate  the  antiquated  decisions  of  the  Biblical  Commis- 
sion in  the  Vatican,  but  they  give  such  full  accounts  of  the 
contrary  theses  that  the  competent  reader  has  an  easy  choice. 
In  dogmatic  matters,  we  have  seen  the  French  Cardinal  Billot, 
author  (it  is  said)  of  the  Encyclical  Pascendi,  convicted  ot 
indulging  in  the  purest  principles  of  Modernism  when  writing 
about  original  sin  and  the  condition  of  infidels  after  death. 
Indeed,  Modernism  has  proved  an  irresistible  movement,  for  it 
is  founded  on  Catholic  science.  Orthodoxy  has  defended  itself 
successfully  against  the  libels  of  laymen  and  the  aggressive 
erudition  of  Protestants  ;  the  strength  and  menace  of  Modernism 
lie  herein,  that  it  was  born  in  the  Church  herself,  at  the  foot 
of  the  altar;  that  it  is  a  product  of  the  learning  of  clerics, 
who,  by  the  study  of  the  texts,  have  arrived  at  conclusions 
even  more  radical  than  those  of  Protestant  and  liberal 
historians. 

94.  The  accepted  thesis  of  the  Roman  Church  is  that  the 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA  TO  MODERNISM    201 

authority  of  the  Sacred  Books  is  guaranteed  by  the  Church, 
and  that  the  authority  of  the  Church  is  founded  on  that  of 
the  Sacred  Books.  Is  not  this  to  argue  in  a  circle?  Pro- 
testantism was  content  Avith  the  authority  of  the  Sacred  Books, 
as  demonstrated  by  a  study  of  these  books  themselves.  But 
Modernism — or,  to  be  more  precise,  the  Modernist  Left — main- 
tains that  neither  the  existence  of  God,  nor  the  redeeming 
mission,  nor  the  divinity,  nor  the  miracles  of  Jesus,  nor  a  single 
dogma,  nor  a  single  sacrament,  can  be  founded  on  the  fragile 
historical  basis  of  the  Scriptures.  This  leaves  us  face  to  face  with 
a  great  fact,  indisputably  historical ;  this  is  the  Church  itself, 
inspired  by  the  Scriptures,  in  the  shadow  of  which  hundreds 
of  millions  of  souls  have  lived,  which  is  the  realisation  of  the 
Scriptures  throughout  the  ages,  whatever  the  authority  of  these 
may  be.  The  Church  has  been  able  to  promulgate  dogmas, 
which  have  evolved  like  herself,  but  not  historical  truths,  which 
beloncr  to  the  domain  of  criticism  alone.  Thus  the  whole 
edifice  is  without  an  ontological  foundation ;  and  yet  it  is  an 
edifice,  the  most  magnificent  the  world  has  seen,  and  this  is 
enough  for  those  who  seek  shelter  in  it.  Thus  enlarged,  it  may 
receive  not  only  Protestants  and  Jews,  but  all  "  men  of  good- 
will." The  evolution  of  the  Christian  temple  makes  it  a  house 
of  refuge  for  all  humanity.  Such,  at  any  rate,  are  the  conclu- 
sions that  may  be  drawn  from  the  thesis  of  Modernism  ;  it  is 
obvious  that  the  Roman  Church  cannot  accept  them,  and  no 
less  obvious  that  her  narrow  orthodoxy  is  doomed  to  founder 
sooner  or  later,  though  not  suddenly,  in  utter  discredit. 

95.  The  Church  has  not  only  to  reckon  with  erudite 
Modernism,  but  with  parallel  philosophical  tendencies.  In 
1834,  Gregory  XVI.  condemned  the  so-called  Fideist  thesis  of  a 
Strasburg  ahhc,  Bautain,  according  to  which  reason  is  powerless 
to  establish  truths,  the  benefit  of  which  must  be  sought  in  the 
traditional  faith.  This  doctrine  was  resuscitated  from  Pascal ; 
it  is  also  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  Bonald  and  Lamennais. 
But  Rome  maintains  that  there  can  be  no  conflict  between  faith 
and  reason,  and  that  the  use  of  reason,  the  gift  of  God,  precedes 
the  act  of  faith.  In  spite  of  the  condemnation  reiterated  by  the 
Vatican  Council  in  1870,  Fideism  made  numerous  recruits  in  the 


202     A   SHORT   HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Catholic  world,  especially  in  France,  where  Brunetiere,  Blondel, 
Labcrthonniere,  and  Le  Roy  showed  themselves  to  be  more  or 
less  imbued  with  it.  In  its  principles,  as  in  its  conclusions,  it  is 
akin  to  Modernism,  to  Pragmatism,  and  to  the  Symbolism  of 
the  Alexandrians  of  the  third  century.  It  has  even  been  said 
that  Loisy's  Modernism  was  the  historic  form  of  Fideism,  as 
Brunetiere's  Catholicism  was  the  social  form.  Fideism  had  its 
uses  when  historical  criticism  was  as  yet  non-existent.  Now 
that  this  has  become  a  positive  science,  any  system  which  tends 
to  dispense  with  it  is  open  to  the  suspicion  of  ignoring  it. 

•  «  •  •  • 

96.  Conversions  of  cultured  unbelievers  to  Protestantism 
are  rather  rare ;  but  in  the  latter  decades  of  the  past  century 
and  the  first  of  this,  numerous  distinguished  men  of  letters  and 
artists,  especially  in  France  and  in  Italy,  have  I'eturned,  with 
some  ostentation,  to  Catholicism  :  one  of  them  was  Psichari, 
Ernest  Renan's  grandson,  who  fell  a  victim  to  the  war.  Such 
conversions  are  usually  sentimental  and  quite  independent  of 
theological  knowledge.  Even  a  scholar  like  Brunetiere,  when 
asked  what  he  really  believed  in  (he  had  been  an  agnostic  from 
the  age  of  thirteen),  answered  :  "  Go  and  inquire  from  Rome  !  " 
hinting  thereby  that  he  accepted  a  discipline,  not  a  creed. 
Many  conversions  of  poets  and  novelists  savour  of  dilettantism 
and  drawing-room  devoutness.  The  religion  of  these  converts 
is  a  kind  of  modernised  Franciscanism,  with  no  small  mixture 
of  sensuousness  and  frivolity.  The  real  and  enduring  power  of 
the  Roman  Church  rests  not  on  such  brilliant  and  self-advertis- 
ing recruits,  but  on  the  great  and  silent  mass  of  the  faithful 
who  strain  every  nerve  and  faculty  to  support  a  Church  now 
abandoned  to  her  own  resources  by  the  State. 

97.  Down  to  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
missionaries  of  the  Gospel  were,  for  the  most  part,  Catholics ; 
since  this  period  the  Protestant  sects,  more  particularly  those 
of  England  and  the  United  States,  have  shown  even  greater 
activity.  The  sums  now  spent  by  Protestants  and  Catholics  in 
non-Christian  countries  must  be  counted  by  tens  of  millions. 
They  are  applied  to  the  construction  and  maintenance  of 
churches,  schools,  training  colleges  and  hospitals,  and  to  the 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     203 

distribution  of  Bibles  and  catechisms  in  all  tongues.  It  cannot 
be  said  that  this  money  is  always  well  spent.  No  praise  can  be 
too  great  for  the  courage  and  self-denial  of  certain  missionaries, 
the  labours  of  a  Livingstone  or  a  Hue,  which  have  benefited 
both  the  cause  of  civilisation  and  that  of  science ;  thousands  of 
obscure  heroes  have  fallen  in  like  manner  on  the  field  of  honour, 
victims  of  disease  and  often  of  cruel  tortures.  But  in  too  many 
cases  the  indiscreet  zeal  of  missionaries,  their  interference  in  the 
home  affairs  of  States,  their  national  and  denominational 
rivalries,  have  brought  discredit  upon  their  work.  In  China, 
more  especially,  the  protection  they  give  to  their  converts,  often 
the  dregs  of  the  population,  is  largely  responsible  for  the  native 
abhorrence  of  foreigners. 

98.  The  centre  of  the  Catholic  missions  is  the  Roman  con- 
gregation of  the  Propaganda  {De  Propaganda  fide) ;  its  most 
important  branch  was,  up  to  our  time  (1922),  the  Societe  de 
Saint-Xavier  at  Lyons,  which  dispensed  an  annual  budget  of 
7,000,000  francs  (^^280,000).  A  French  society,  called  the 
Sainte-Enfance  (1843),  has  spent  nearly  80,000,000  francs 
(i^3,200,000)  in  a  half-century  to  ensure  the  baptism  of 
heathen  children  at  the  point  of  death ;  China  has  been  the 
chief  beneficiary  of  this  extravagance.  The  Protestant  missions, 
English  and  American,  spend  about  -^2, 400,000  a  year ;  Pro- 
testant Germany  contributes  about  i?240,000  to  the  same 
cause,  France  and  Switzerland  together  about  c£40,000.  The 
Russian  Church  has  missionaries  in  Siberia ;  Buddhism  sends  its 
emissaries  into  the  Far  East,  and  Islam  proselytises  mainly 
among  the  negroes  of  Africa,  where  it  has  made  rapid  progress 
within  the  last  sixty  or  seventy  years. 

99.  Following  the  example  of  Jesus  in  Israel,  the  Church 
has  also  organised  missions  to  convert  the  "  heathen  at  home," 
criminals,  infidels,  and  ignorant  persons.  This  was  one  of  the 
favourite  ideas  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.  As  the  tempoi'al  sword 
was  blunted  in  the  nineteenth  century,  these  missions  have  per- 
force become  civilising  and  charitable  undertakings,  especially  in 
Protestant  countries,  where  the  religious  orders  which  carry  on 
the  work  in  other  lands  are  lacking.  Germany  reveres  the  pastor 
Bodelschwingh  (1831-1910),  who  founded  many  charities  for 


204     A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

the  sick,  labour  colonies,  asylums  and  workmen's  dwellings. 
But  no  efforts  in  this  direction  have  equalled  those  of  the 
Salvation  Army  (the  name  dates  from  1878  only),  founded  in 
London  in  1872  by  the  Reverend  William  Booth.  This  charity, 
Avhich  is  organised  on  a  purely  military  model,  and  is  not  afraid 
of  advertisement  even  of  the  noisiest  kind,  has  done  an  immense 
amount  of  good,  both  in  England  and  abroad.  "  General " 
Booth  and  his  wife  remain  popular  figures  throughout  the 
world.  To  procure  the  funds  necessary  for  its  far-reaching 
benevolence,  the  Salvation  Army  has  become  a  manufacturing, 
commercial  and  agricultural  enterprise ;  it  undertakes  banking 
and  insurance,  and  extends  its  influence  and  its  relations  every- 
where. Originally  an  off-shoot  of  Methodism,  it  has  gradually 
lost  its  sectarian  character,  to  concentrate  its  efforts  upon  the 
elevation  of  the  masses ;  the  spirit  which  now  inspires  it  is 
essentially  philanthropical.  Some  critics  have  found  fault  with 
its  Socialist  tendencies,  others  with  its  abuse  of  advertisement 
and  its  buffoonery ;  but  the  work  it  has  done  and  is  still  doing 
in  the  slums  of  London  and  New  York  is  enough  to  command 
gratitude  and  respect  for  it. 

•  •  •  •  • 

100.  It  may  be  asked  whether  moral  progress  or  the  in- 
fluence of  Christianity  was  the  determining  factor  in  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  that  blot  upon  antiquity  which  had  come 
down  to  the  nineteenth  century.  No  doubt  the  two  influences 
were  at  work  side  by  side ;  but  in  justice  we  must  not  forget 
that  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  (xv.  14  ;  xxiii.  16)  bears  witness 
to  a  touching  solicitude  for  slaves,  that  the  Jewish  Essenes  and 
Therapeutists  alone  in  the  civilised  world  of  antiquity  refused 
to  keep  slaves,  and  that  the  Primitive  Church  looked  upon 
slaves  as  brothers — spiritu  fratres,  relig'ione  C07iservi,  as  Lac- 
tantius  says  in  imitation  of  Seneca.^  She  facilitated  enfranchise- 
ment and  reckoned  it  among  good  works.  Although  she 
made  no  direct  attempt  to  abolish  slavery,  and  even  herself 
owned  slaves  in  the  Middle  Ages,  she  made  great  efforts 
to  redeem  the  Christian  slaves  of  the  Musulmans,  and  when 
the   conquest   of  America   introduced    negro    slaves   into   the 

^  Lactantius,  List.  v.  15,  3  (written  about  a.d,  300). 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA  TO   MODERNISM     205 

Continent,  she  did  her  utmost  to  improve  their  condition. 
"  The  Christian  principle,"  as  Paul  Viollet  truly  says,  "  slowly 
struck  at  the  heart  of  slavery." 

101.  In  the  twelfth  century,  slavery  tended  to  disappear  in 
the  North-West  of  Europe,  but  serfdom  survived  in  France 
until  the  eighteenth.  In  the  South  and  the  East,  slavery 
persisted  much  longer,  as  a  result  of  contact  with  Islam  ;  the 
Crusaders  even  had  Greek  Christians  as  slaves.  The  restoration 
of  Roman  law,  and  the  sanction  of  Aristotle — who  considered 
slave-holding  a  natural  right — were  obstacles  to  the  reform  for 
which  Eastern  monks  had  prepared  the  way  in  the  fifth  century. 
There  were  Saracen  slaves  at  the  Papal  Court  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  in  1548  Paul  III.  confirmed  the  rights  of  laity  and 
clergy  to  own  them.  The  importation  of  negro  slaves  to 
Portugal  began  in  1442  ;  in  1454,  this  traffic  was  endorsed  by 
Nicholas  V.  In  the  New  World,  the  Spaniards  and  the 
Portuo-uese  reduced  the  natives  to  a  state  more  terrible  than 
slavery ;  they  died  by  hundreds  as  a  result  of  forced  labour 
in  the  mines.  The  Dominican,  Bartolomeo  de  Las  Casas,  sought 
to  save  them  by  advising  the  importation  of  negroes.  His 
counsel  was  followed,  and  at  the  end  of  his  life  he  repented 
it,  realising  too  late  that  the  negroes  were  men  as  well  as  the 
Indians.  The  traffic  in  negroes  became  a  very  profitable  trade, 
entailing  horrible  cruelty,  both  in  Africa  and  America.  By  the 
year  1790,  there  were  200,000  negroes  in  Virginia  alone.  The 
economic  rivalry  between  North  and  South  played  a  part  in  the 
Abolitionist  campaign,  which  began  in  the  North;  but  the 
Quakers  of  Pennsylvania,  who  had  prohibited  the  slave-trade  in 
their  State  as  early  as  1696,  were  actuated  by  religious  motives. 
In  1776,  the  House  of  Commons  rejected  a  motion  of  David 
Hartley's  "  that  the  slave-trade  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of  God 
and  the  rights  of  man."  Undaunted  by  this,  the  English 
Quakers  formed  an  Anti-Slavery  Association  in  1783;  others 
sprang  up  in  America.  Wilberforce  (1759-1833),  a  member  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  has  the  honour  of  having  effected  the 
repudiation  of  the  traffic  by  England  (1807),  following  the 
example  of  Denmark,  who  had  led  the  way  in  1792.  In  France, 
the  Convention  decreed  the  enfranchisement  of  slaves  (1794),  a 


206     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

measure  which  was  repealed  under  the  Consulate  (1802). 
Slavery  did  not  disappear  from  the  English  colonies  till  1833, 
and  from  the  French  colonies  till  1848.  Its  abolition  in  the 
United  States  was  only  brought  about  by  a  long  civil  war 
(1860-1865).  The  wisdom  of  Dom  Pedro  gradually  delivered 
Brazil  from  the  evil  (1871  and  onwards) ;  finally,  a  French 
prelate,  Lavigerie,  threw  himself  with  great  fervour  into  a 
campaign  against  the  traffic  in  negro  slaves  for  the  Musulmans. 
The  Anti-Slavery  Congress  held  at  Brussels  in  1889  also  took 
measures  in  this  connection,  which  have  proved  more  or  less 
futile.  We  must  unfortunately  add  that  certain  forms  of 
slavery,  notably  the  forced  labour  of  the  blacks,  still  obtain  in 
the  European  colonies  of  Africa,  and  that  the  Chinese  coolies 
are  often  treated  like  slaves  where  they  are  employed  in  mines 
c  on  public  works.  In  this  long  struggle  against  an  execrable 
custom,  the  part  played  by  the  Catholic  clergy  has  been,  on 
the  whole,  less  prominent  than  that  of  the  Protestant  Churches. 

102.  It  was  not  generally  recognised  by  the  society  of  the 
eighteenth  century  that  religions,  and  even  superstitions, 
are  conservative  forces.  The  French  Revolution  opened  its 
eyes.  Society  did  not  become  religious,  but  it  pretended  to 
do  so ;  it  desired  that  women,  children,  and  the  poor  should  be 
disciplined  and  tempered  by  faith.  This  is  the  hypocrisy 
denounced  afresh  by  Leo  Tolstoy  on  the  day  of  his  Jubilee 
(July,  1908):  "The  infamous  lie  of  a  religion  in  which  we  do 
not  believe  ourselves,  but  which  we  forcibly  impose  on  others," 
This  lie  filled  the  nineteenth  century,  and  has  survived  it.  The 
French  University,  by  nature  liberal,  was  long  obliged  to  pay 
homage  to  it,  notably  in  the  teaching  of  the  so-called  spiritualist 
philosophy,  a  Christianity  without  dogmas,  but  not  without 
theological  prejudices.  Sainte-Beuve  remarked  playfully  that 
whereas  the  bishops  spoke  of  the  IIoIt/  Scriptures,  Victor 
Cousin  said  the  most  Holfj  Scriptures.  What  is  known  as 
"Society"  has  been  the  greatest  offender  in  this  respect; 
seconded  by  the  middle-class  infirmity  of  snobbery,  it  has  con- 
strained its  members  either  to  adopt  the  conventional  falsehood, 
or  to  keep  silence.     Throughout  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria, 


FROM  ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM    207 

England  set  the  example  of  this  insincerity ;  free-thought  was 
considered  disreputable.  But  nowhere  has  the  tyrannical  power 
of  the  so-called  upper  classes,  coalescing  to  stifle  truth  in  favour 
of  a  clerical  faction,  manifested  itself  more  painfully  than  in 
France,  at  the  time  of  the  Dreyfus  affair,  when  the  revision  of  a 
trial  in  which  all  the  evidence  was  in  favour  of  the  right  was 
resisted  by  the  Jesuits  and  nearly  all  the  French  clergy  at  their 
commands,  and  divided  all  France  into  two  hostile  camps.  No 
one  could  belong  to  "  Society  "  and  retain  his  place  in  it  if  he 
would  not  voluntarily  shut  his  eyes  to  the  truth,  and  take  the 
part  of  Jesuitism  against  justice.  Even  in  the  literary  world 
there  were  examples  of  lamentable  weakness  which  had  not 
even  the  excuse  of  religious  conviction.  The  Esau  of  the 
Scriptures  sold  his  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage ;  our 
iin-de-siecle  Trissotins  bartered  their  right  of  judgment  for 
truffles. 

103.  Amidst  all  these  shades  of  hypocrisy,  and  all  the 
honourable  bonds  of  tradition  and  habit,  it  is  impossible  to 
determine,  even  after  long  investigation,  in  what  measure 
religion  still  retains  its  hold  upon  the  souls  of  our  con- 
temporaries. How  are  we  to  distinguish  those  who  conform 
without  believing  from  those  who  believe  without  professing 
conformity .?  But  a  general  fact,  which  was  already  perceptible 
towards  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  becomes  more 
and  more  apparent  in  our  days.  In  the  time  of  Voltaire,  free- 
thought  lighted  up  the  summits  only ;  it  did  not  descend 
into  the  depths.  In  the  nineteenth  century,  the  leisured 
classes  professed  without  believing ;  the  workers,  in  the  towns 
at  least,  ceased  to  believe  and  dared  to  say  so.  The  working 
classes  are  everywhere  escaping  from  the  authority  of  the 
Chuix'hes ;  even  the  peasants  are  emancipating  themselves. 
Musset's  apostrophe  to  Voltaire  is  being  verified  : 

Ton  si^cle  ^tait,  dit-on,  trop  jeune  pour  te  lire  : 

Le  notre  doit  te  plaire,  et  tes  homines  sont  ues.  .   .  . 

But  as  free-thought,  without  the  support  of  solid  knowledge,  is 
only  an  inverted  dogmatism,  leaving  the  field  open  to  other 
attacks  upon  the  reason,  one  of  the  most  pressing  duties  of  the 


208     A   SHORT  HISTORY   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

twentieth  century  is  to  fortify  the  reason  by  study,  with  a  view 
to  the  cahn  and  dehberate  exercise  of  free-thought. 

104.  Rehgious  instruction,  which  exists  in  ahnost  every 
country  in  Europe,  has  been  suppressed  in  French  schools,  those 
"schools  without  God,"  as  their  detractors  call  them.  And 
further,  it  has  been  impressed  upon  the  teachers  in  the  name  of 
"  scholastic  neutrality ""  that  they  are  never  to  speak  of  religion 
to  their  pupils.  This  silence  is  sensible  enough  in  the  elemen- 
tary schools,  where  the  minds  of  children  are  not  sufficiently 
cultivated  to  receive  scientific  knowledge.  But  the  adolescent 
pupils  of  the  colleges  and  higher  schools  know  nothing  of  the 
Pentateuch,  the  Prophets  and  the  Gospels,  the  origin  and  the 
evolution  of  dogmas,  save  the  historical  errors  taught  in 
the  catechisms,  or  the  equally  pernicious  absurdities  dear  to  the 
free-thinking  orator  of  the  wine-shop.  In  Protestant  countries 
the  Scriptural  texts  are  better  known,  but  those  who  read  do 
not,  as  a  rule,  understand  them,  and  criticism  of  them  is 
reserved  for  scholars.  Thus  practised,  "  scholastic  neutrality  " 
is  at  once  a  neglect  of  duty  on  the  part  of  the  State  as  in- 
structor, and  an  abdication  of  its  powers  in  favour  of  those 
who  propagate  error.  Not  only  in  France,  but  throughout  the 
world,  the  salvation  of  thinking  humanity  must  be  sought  in 
education,  and  if  there  is  one  duty  more  imperative  than 
another  laid  upon  secondary  education,  it  is  to  teach  young 
men,  the  future  fathers  of  families,  wherein  religions  consist, 
when  and  how  they  have  met  a  universal  want,  what  indis- 
putable services  they  have  rendered,  but  also  how  past 
generations  have  suffered  from  ignorance  and  fanaticism,  on 
what  literary  frauds  the  domination  of  the  Church  was  estab- 
lished in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  finally,  what  a  consoling 
prospect  the  ultimate  reign  of  reason  and  the  enfranchisement 
of  thought  opens  out  before  the  human  mind. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

General  sources  the  same  as  for  Chapter  III. 

1.  A.  Lorand,  L'^tat  et  les  jSglises  (constitutional  texts  regulating  their 
relations  in  the  different  countries),  Brussels,  1904. 

2.  H.  Br^mond,  Hist.  litt.  dii,  sentiment  reiigieux  in  France,  vol.  iv. ,  1920. 
3-4.  In  general,  see  Lanson,  Histoire  de  la  litt&ature  frai^aise,  1894. — On 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     209 

isyb.  on  J    J.  Rousseau,  L.  Ducros,  3  vols.,  1918  i' ouainanisme, 

prolan  ct:j^tZB\^^,^::iYuS^  ^^^  ^'^^^-•^-'  ^^ 


7.  Peyrat,  La  Mvohition,  1866. 

8.  R.  Allier,  Voliairc  et  Galas,  1898. 
!?■  'f  ^heiner,  (?j^cAic;i<c  cZc5  Pontifikats  Klnnens  XIV.,  2  vols     1852 

.      12.  E.  Chenon,  Z'^^fee  et  la  Revolution,  U^nlise  som  leCoZvlnWn'w      ■ 
in  Lavsse  and  Ranibaud's  ITistoire  genM,  vols   vii     and  irgnfiV-^-^"''' 

1911  ;  Champion,  S^a^^.'^e^^'^27^:^^'t70r  Sos'Tr? 

Id    Au  ard,  Ze  C?«Z^c  f^c  Z«  liaison  et  de  VEtre  Suvrtme    ISQc  •  Po'f        r 
premiere  separation,  1920.  '^ujmvie,   liH)2  ;  Patry,  Za 

16'  N  5Jfn^^;i'/"^^^"^,^f«'^^^'-^i^^'^.  1904;  Annales  r6vol. ,  1921,  p   441 
17     T    n  7^  The  Story  of  the  Scottish  Church,  1919  1^" 

Mennonites,   1920  ^'       ^         "'    *"•    Henry    Smith,    The 

/r..^;Tn  Hauck.  ^'"'''  ^"''^'^  '"^  ^^^^■^^^^■*"^'  ^  vols.,  1878;  art.  Darly  and 

^  _^^-  A.  M^jor,  Af.  mdyet  la  Science  chrmenne   IQlo      lu    r<  •         ^7    •    • 
-S«.«<:.,  in  the  Siiddeutsche  3fonatshefte  June  mi'  ^^^^•~^-  ^^'^^^'  Christian 

26    Art'  ^Tr&iT^'S''  T  Hastings,  EncycL  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  (1908) 
-7-34.  Art.  R2tualismus,  Traktarianismus  Newvian    Pi/ieu  in  TTo„.i       r. 

Manning,   mi;  Shane  Le'l'ie,  Tnie  subj^^t  Ig^l   "  A  ^G^n'^t 't''''^"^ 
34  trV/  ''^-  '''"^^'  /  ^'^^^'^''^'  1899- -^i  'cMcm;ecl%  '{T^ 

Burton!' rt%'7^lTJ^8''6r?wiV)'^f  ^'•'^^^^   ^-5~->  1912; 

38.  k.  Ritter!  taierZep'h!/     mf-   b'TI''  V^'  ''^K''^' 
1909;  Pirenne,  hst.  de  AlgFque  Wv     iSq  '  ^'■^"""''^  '^'''P^  ^^•' 

39.  Art.  rte^ermcA  in  Hauck  '' 

^  ^-"iitl'^OnSn^^^^^  ^^«1-  i:.1907;  vol.  ii.,  1909;  Pisani, 

42.  Art.  ^rui;..  in  HkSk  ^     "'"'  ^'"'^"'^  ^«^«^^^^-s,  1921. 

l?'^?^^^^l'.;^'  ^%'etoire  (in  ZTw^.  .><  iJ^Zi^fow,  p.  153). 
44-45.  Matthieu,  Le  Concordat    IQns  f^f  Tf-.Lu      i  '  t 

p.  96);   Welschinger,  LeZeet   SJ^L  Too?    V     '''•  '^ -n '^'^"^•,P0*' 
romaine  et  V Empire,  3rd  ed     5  vols     K     nl^??  '    ^^"^^^^yiHe.    X'^^^i^g 

46.   Brosct    OtKhKhl,  <ks  KinhtnstaM,,  vol.  ii     1881      R,„l„    n,-      - 
f^.<«,  v„,.  „,,  ,874  (English  translation,;  Sti'La",  Vie  S  f/'/^ 

K  vio,,.t,  rv...„s-  KSC^ro4r!!Sctift.™sSi,:s 


210     A   SHORT  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

(Immaculate  Conception)  and  Vatikanischcs  Konzil. — Prince  Jerome  Napoleon, 
Les  alliaiicts  de  V Empire  (in  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  April  1,  1878). 

49.  J.  de  Maistre  (Ste.-Beuve,  Portr.  lift.,  vol.  ii.  p.  379,  and  Lundis, 
vol.  iv,  p.  150). — Bonald  {Lundis,  vol.  iv.  p.  328). — Veuillot  (Nouveaux  Lundis, 
vol.  i.  p.  42). — On  the  Action  fran^aise  and  the  Catholic  atheism  of  some  of 
its  adherents  :  I).  Pai'odi,  Pages  Litres,  May  30  and  June  6,  1908. — The  verses 
by  V.  Hugo  quoted  are  in  Les  Chdtiments. 

50.  Ch.  Boulard,  Lamennais,  1905. — Lacordaire  (Ste.-Beuve,  Lundis,  vol.  i., 
p.  208,  and  Nouv.  Lundis,  vol.  iv.  p.  392). — Montalembert  {Lundis,  vol.  i., 
p.  74 ;  Peyrat,  Hist,  et  Religion,  1858,  p.  86) ;  G.  Weill,  Hist,  dii  catholicismc 
liberal  en  France,  1909.     There  are  full  bibliographies  in  Hauck's  articles. 

51.  Marc  Sangnier,  CUricalisvie  ct  d6mocratie,  1907. — Condemnation  of  Le 
Billon  by  the  bishops  :  Revue  du  eUrgi,  March  1909. — On  the  Sillon,  see  Pages 
Libres,  April  24,  1909. — Italian  social  modernism  :  A.  della  Torre,  appendix  to 
the  Italian  version  of  Orjiheus,  vol.  ii.  p.  1013. 

52-53.  E.  Daudet,  La  Terreur  blanche,  1887;  G.  de  Grandmaison,  La 
Congregation  (1801-1830),  1889 ;  A.  Bardoux,  Le  comte  de  Montlosier  et  le 
gallicanisme,   1891. 

54.  Thureau-Dangin,  L'^ylise  et  VMat  sous  la  monarchic  de  Juillet,  1880 ; 
Colani,  Le  jMrti  catholique  sons  la  monarchic  de  Juillet  (in  Etudes  de  critique, 
p.  137) ;  H.  Michel,  La  loi  Falloux,  1905 ;  F.  Mouret,  Le  Mouvement  cathol.  en 
ifVa:?2/^e  (1830-1850),  1917. 

55.  See  the  histories  of  the  Second  Empire  by  Taxile  Delord  and  P.  de  la 
Gorce. — E.  Bourgeois  and  E.  Clermont,  Rome  et  Na-poUon  III.,  1907. 

56.  A.  Debidour,  L'^glise  catholique  et  I'^tat  sous  le  troisiemc  Ripublique, 
2  vols.,  1906-1909.— P.  Cloche,  Le  seize  mai  (in  Pages  Libres,  October  10, 1908). 

57-59.  J.  Reinach,  Histoire  de  V affaire  Dreijjus,  7  vols.,  1901-1911  ;  T.  R., 
art.  Dreyfus  in  the  Jewish  Encycl. — L.  Chaine,  Les  cathol.  franrais  et  leurs 
difficultes  actuelles,  1903  (confessions  of  a  Lyonese  Catholic  on  the  ugly  part 
played  by  the  Church  during  the  crisis) ;  Anat.  France,  Le  parti  noir 
(Brussels),  1905  ;  Fred.  Conybeare,  Roman  Catholicism,  1901. — P.  Sabatier, 
Siparation  des  Sglises  et  de  I'^tat,  1905  ;  Russacq,  Apres  la  Separation  (in  Pages 
Libres,  September  28,  1907) ;  Eth.  Taunton,  The  Holy  See  and  France  (in 
Nineteenth  Century,  March  1906,  p.  495). — C  Coignet,  Le  protestantisme 
^ran/^is  au  XIX'  siecle,  1908  ;  T.  Bricout,  Les  ^glises  riformies  de  France  (in 
Rev.  du  clergi,  1908,  pp.  156,  268) ;  H.  Kuss,  Constitution  des  Assoc.  cuUuelles 
des  ^glises  riformies  en  France,  1907. 

60.  Wceste,  Histoire  du  Kulturkampf  en  Suisse,  1887. 

61-66.  Art.  Jesuitenordeyi  in  Hauck. 

67-70.  Art.  Altcatholicismus,  DoUinger  and  Ultramontanismus  in  Hauck ; 
J.  F.  Schulte,  Dollinger,  3  vols.,  1901.— On  the  Kulturkampf :  C.  Goyau, 
UAllemagnc  religieuse,  le  Catholicisme,  4  vols.,  1905-1908  ;  L.  de  Behaine,  I^ion 
XIII.  et  Bismarck,  1898. — A.  Houtin,  La  question  bihlique  au  XX'  siecle,  1906  ; 
La  arise  du  clergi,  1907  ;  Le  Pere  Hyacinthe,  2  vols. ,  1920,  1922.— D'Avenel,  Rev. 
des  Deux  Mondes,  August  19,  1921.— J.  Bournichon,  Le  Compagnie  de  J6sus  en 
France,  1921  ;  M.  Charny,  Cahiers  des  Droits  de  I'Homme,  June  25,  1922. 

70-76.  P.  Parfait,  L'arsenal  de  la  dSvotion,  9th  ed.,  1879 ;  Le  dossier  des 
pelerinages,  4th  ed.,  1879;  La /aire  aux  reliques,  1879;  Colani,  Essais,Tp.  123; 
G.  T^ry,  Les  cordicoles,  1902;  art.  Herz  Jezu  in  Hauck. 

77-80.  Lea,  Inquis.  of  Spain,  vol.  iv.  p.  2  et  seq.  :  R.  P.  Rolfi,  La  magie 
moderne,  1902;  D.  P.  Abbott,  Behind  the  Scenes  with  the  Mediums,  1908; 
Thulie,  PMnomenes  mystiques  (in  Rev.  mensuelle  d'anthrop.,  October  1908); 
L.  Wintrebert,  L'occuUisme  (in  Revue  du  elcrgi,  August,  1,  1908,  p.  327)  ;  cf. 
art.  Magic  in  Hauck.— On  Neo-Buddhism :  Barth,  Rev.  Hist.  Relig.  1902, 
vol.  xlv.  p.  346;  art.  Blavatzky  and  Theosophy  in  Brit.  Encycl.— E.  Ca,TO, 
Saint  Martin,  1862.— E.  Bersot,  Mesmer,  1853.— G.  Ballet,  Swedenborg,  1902; 
G.  Trobridge,  Swedenborg,  1907. 

81.  Rob.  Freke  Gould,  Concise  History  of  Freemasonry,  1887.— Vauthier, 
Rev.  Univ.  de  Brux.,  November  1908,  p.  134.— Art.  Freimaurer,  in  Hauck. 

83.  Lea,  Ldo  Taxil,  Diana  Vaughan  and  the  Roman  Church,  1901. 


FROM   ENCYCLOPEDIA   TO   MODERNISM     211 

86.  G.  Weil,  VlScole  Saint- Simonienne,  1896  ;  Li^vy-Bruhl,  Philos.  (VAuguste 
Comle,  1899  ;  G.  Dumas,  Psychologie  de  Deux  Messies  positivitcs  (Saint-Simon 
and  Comte),  1905. — Positivist  calendar:  Morley,  Critical  Miscellanies,  vol.  iv. , 
1908. — H.  Bourgin,  Fourier,  1907. — On  the  anti-military  ideas  of  the  early 
Christians :  Harnack,  Militia  Christi,  1905 ;  P.  Gerosa,  S.  Agostino  e  la, 
decadenza  dell'  Impero,   1916. 

88.  Schleiermacher,  Redenuber  Religion,  1800. — A.  Otto,  Fr.  Schleiermacher, 
1899 ;  art.  SchUierinacher,  in  Haiick  ;  A.  Neander,  General  History  of  the 
Christian  Religion  and  Church,  Engl,  ed.,  1853  (coll.  Bohn);  art.  Neander,  in 
Hauck;  Hegel,  Vorlesungen  ilher  die  Philosophie  der  Religion,  1832. — See  also 
art.  Tiibinger  SchuU  (School  of  Tiibingen)  in  Hauck. 

89.  Edm.  Scherer,  Alex.  Vinet,  1853. 

90.  Houtin,  V AmSricanisme,  1903;  S.  Reinach,  Cultes,  vol.  iii.  p.  510; 
Marcel  Hebert,  Le  Pragmatisme,  1908;  L.  Stein,  PhilosDphische  Str&iiiungen, 
1908,  p.  37  ct  seq.  ;  Edinburgh  Revieu\  April  1909  (Pragmatism). 

91.  Guignebert,  Modernisme  ct  tradition  catholique,  1907;  A.  Houtin,  La 
crise  du  clerg6,  1907  ;  La  question  biblique  au  XX'  siecle,  1906 ;  La  q.  bibl,  au 
XIX'  sikle,  1902;  VapostoliciU  des  J^glises  de  France,  3rd  ed.,  1903;  Eist.  du 
modernisme,  1913. — Evolution  in  theology  :  S.  Reinach,  Cultes,  vol.  i.  p.  410  ; 
Bricout,  Le  cUveloppement  da  dogmc  (in  Revue  du  clerg^,  April  15, 1908,  p.  150). — 
Works  of  the  Abb6  Loisy  :  L'Evangile  el  V&glise,  1902  (in  answer  to  Harnack, 
Das  Wcsen  des  Christentums,  1900) ;  Autour  d'lcn  petit  livre,  1903  ;  Quelques 
ettres  and  Simp  Us  rdflexiovs,  1908. 

On  Strausss,  Reuss  and  M.  Nicolas,  see  the  articles  in  Hauck's  Encycl. — 
On  Nicolas,  see  also  E.  Stapfer,  in  Etudet  de  thdologie,  1901,  p.  153. — On 
Renan:  Seailles,  Ernest  Rcnan,  2nd  ed.,  1895. — On  the  syllabus  Lamentabili, 
see  Paiges  Libres,  August  10,  1907. 

92.  Modernism  in  England  and  Germany :  Revue  dit  clerqi,  March  1909, 
p.  541,  678.— M.  Petre,  Life  of  G.   Tyrrell,   1912  (d.  July  1909). 

93.  On  Cardinal  Billot :  E.  Perrin,  Rev.  hist.  litt.  rel.,  1921,  p.  319. 

95.  M.  Hebert,  U iSvolution  de  lafoi  catholique,  1905,  p.  132  et  seq. 

96.  Converts :  Huby,  Lcs  Etudes,  May  20,  1918 ;  S.  Reinach,  Revue  sud- 
amiricaine,  May  1914. 

97.  Art.  Mission  in  Hauck  ;  J.  B.  Piolet,  Les  missions  catholiques,  6  vols., 
1902;  Louvety,  Les  miss,  cathol.  au  XIX'  siecle,  1898;  R.  AUier,  Les  troubles 
en  Chine  et  les  missions,  1901 ;  J.  Feillet,  Mccristes  et  Canaqucs  (Brussels), 
1906. 

97.  M.  Goyau,  L'Alle-magne  religieuse,  le  protestantisme,  1898  ;  Le  catho- 
licisme  (1800-1870),  4  vols.,  1905-1908.— Art.  Heilsarmee  (Salvation  Army) 
in  Hauck ;  Les  J^tudes,  August  20,  p.  1920  (Booth). 

100.  Lea,  The  Church  and  Slavery  (in  Studies  in  Church  History,  p.  524. — 
Zadok  Kahn,  L'Esclavage  selon  la  Bible  et  le  Talmud,  1867. — Art.  Slavery  in 
Encycl.  Brit.  ;  art.  Sklaverei  und  Chrisientum  in  Hauck. 

101-102.  See  Colani's  Etudes,  which  are  full  of  judicious  observations  on 
these  questions,  notably  the  essays  on  the  Bible,  and  on  the  revival  of  the 
Catholic  party  among  the  middle  classes  in  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe. 

104.  See  on  "Scholastic  Neutrality"  G.  hsinson,  Revue  Bleue,  April-May, 
1905. 


P  2 


EPILOGUE 

Established  Churches  played  a  very  small  part  in  the  great 
world-war  (1914-1918).  No  doubt,  the  chief  offenders,  Austrian 
and  Prussian  nobles,  were  Lutheran  Pietists  or  Roman  Catholics  ; 
but  their  crime  was  a  result  of  their  greed,  not  of  their  creed. 
The  various  religions  afforded  solace  to  millions  of  broken  hearts 
and  broken  limbs  ;  they  stimulated  charitable  work  ;  but  patriot- 
ism and  love  of  humanity  did  just  the  same.  Religions,  as  such, 
remained  powerless.  Vainly  did  the  Khalif  proclaim  the  sacred 
war:  Arab  Musulmans  fought  by  the  side  of  the  British  to 
conquer  Jerusalem  (1918).  The  Orthodox  Church  of  Russia, 
enslaved  by  despotism,  was  no  element  of  strength  to  be 
reckoned  with,  and  collapsed  miserably  in  the  short  struggle 
against  miscreant  Bolshevism.  Even  the  Japanese  SUjUo  was 
made  subservient  to  a  clever  policy  of  "  wait  and  see."" 

If  established  religions  stood  aloof,  some  sort  of  religion 
did  not.  Christianity  is  a  universal  religion,  regardless  of 
nations  and  frontiers ;  Rousseau  even  thought  that  it  was 
directly  antagonistic  to  patriotism.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century,  decaying  creeds  had  tried,  like  Paganism  in 
the  fourth  century,  to  identify  themselves  with  patriotism  ;  it 
was  generally  said,  though  not  believed,  that  a  true  Frenchman 
should  be  Roman  Catholic,  a  true  Russian  should  be  Orthodox, 
&c.  When  the  war  began  and  shook  the  nerves  of  the  nations, 
patriotism  at  once  imbibed  the  spirit,  energy  and  intolerance 
of  religions.  National  saints,  like  St.  George  and  Joan  of  Arc, 
came  to  the  fore ;  in  Germany,  the  "  German  God,"  repeatedly 
appealed  to  by  William  II.,  was  not  the  Christian  God,  but  the 
Odin  or  Thor  of  Norse  mythology.^     If  Islam  seemed  to  break 

1  On  the  religious  chai-acter  of  Germanism,  see  Rev,  hist.,  cxxiv.  p.  130. 

212 


EPILOGUE  213 

down,  patriotic  Panislamism  and  Turkish  nationalism  took  its 
place.  The  greater  number  of  the  Jews  rallied  around  the  flag 
of  Zionism,  not  a  form  of  religious  Judaism,  but  a  new  religion 
founded  on  the  misconception  of  race.  In  those  days  of  strife 
and  hatred  between  groups  of  nations,  internationalism  was 
looked  upon  with  the  same  suspicion  and  ire  as  would  have  been 
free-thought  in  the  time  of  the  Crusades. 

Superstitions  of  the  grossest  sort  and  childish  legends — such 
as  that  of  guardian  angels  protecting  the  British  retreat  from 
Mons — flourished  both  in  the  armies  and  among  distressed 
civilians.  Soothsayers  never  had  better  opportunities  ;  prophets 
found  audiences ;  amulets  were  sold  by  the  million ;  ^  the 
absurdities  of  occultism  and  spiritualism  spread  like  prairie 
fires.  Superstitions  are  older  than  religions ;  they  are  often 
disciplined  and  purified  by  these  ;  they  run  wild  when  religions 
decline.  Belief  or  disbelief  in  accepted  creeds  is  a  thousand  times 
more  attractive  and  attainable  than  rationalism,  and  therefore 
much  more  frequent  in  our  day. 

One  great  spiritual  power  remained,  which  could  have 
interposed  to  prevent  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  But  Pius  X. 
vainly  bade  his  Nuncio  admonish  the  Austrian  Emperor;  he 
failed  even  to  get  a  hearing  from  that  well-guarded  old  imbecile. 
The  next  Pope,  Benedict  XV.,  had  to  reckon  with  a  majority  of 
pro-German  cardinals,  with  the  hatred  of  the  monastic  Orders 
for  "  persecuting  "  France,  with  the  aristocratic  leaning  towards 
mdhority  which,  in  many  Catholic  countries,  such  as  Spain,^ 
gained  sympathy  for  the  German  cause.  He  strove  to  remain 
strictly  neutral.  He  spoke  words  of  solace  to  Belgium,  but  not 
one  word  of  reproof  to  the  invaders,  murderers  and  burglars 
though  they  were ;  he  protested  against  new  and  abominable 
methods  of  warfare,  but  did  not  condemn  those  who  first  resorted 
to  them  ;  he  ordered  prayers  for  peace,  peace  without  victory, 
but  disregarded  the  responsibilities  incurred  by  the  aggressors 
and  the  legitimate  demands  of  the  oppressed.^  The  time  came 
when  truly  Christian  words  about  the  infamy  of  the  war  and 

^  Bellucci,  Folklore  di  guerra,  1920. 

*  F.  Girerd,  Spain  during  the  ivar,  in  Revue  da  cleiye,  February  1917. 
^  Anonymous,  La  politique  de  Benoit  XV.,  in  Revue  de  Paris,  October  15, 
1918  ;  Glorieux,  Benoit  XV.  et  la  guerre,  in  Revue  du  derge,  August  1,  1916. 


214  EPILOGUE 

hopes  for  the  advent  of  a  better  era  were  uttered  only  by  the 
Protestant  professor,  President  Wilson,  whom  Loisy,  lecturing 
at  the  College  de  France,  called  "  the  Pope  of  humanity." 

Perilous  as  it  was,  because  over-cautious,  the  Roman  Pope's 
policy  was  not  unsuccessful.  He  had  disappointed  many  expec- 
tations, but  wounded  no  susceptibilities.  His  charity,  if  not  his 
judgment,  had  been  impartial.  When  the  German  star  declined, 
Benedict  found  good  words  for  his  "dear  France  "  ;  the  French 
national  heroine,  Joan  of  Arc,  was  canonised  (1920) ;  diplomatic 
relations  were  renewed  betweeii  France  and  the  Holy  See  (1921) ; 
the  Italian  Government  was  no  longer  held  in  suspicion,  and 
Benedict's  successor,  Pius  XI.  (February  1922),  received  official 
Italian  honours  when  he  ascended  the  throne. 

The  prospects  of  Catholicism  are  now  indeed  very  bright. 
Two  new  independent  States  that  are  Catholic,  Poland  and 
Hungary,  stand  in  close  contact  with  the  schismatic  Slavs,  who 
may  be  induced  to  reunite.  Syria  and  Palestine  are  under  Chris- 
tian rule,  widely  open  to  Catholic  teaching  and  proselytism. 
Catholicism  remains  all-powerful  in  Austria  and  in  western 
Germany.  France,  having  recovered  Alsace-Lorraine,  where 
Catholic  traditions  prevail,  and  occupied  the  left  banks  of  the 
Rhine,  has  been  obliged  to  modify  her  policy  of  ignoring  the 
Church.  The  Catholic  part  of  Ireland  has  become  practically 
independent  (December  1921).  In  Great  Britain  itself,  the 
religious  Orders  and  their  schools  have  risen  to  great  prosperity. 
In  the  United  States,  the  Church  of  Rome  is  more  influential 
than  ever;  a  Catholic  union,  the  Knights  of  Columbus,  have 
made  themselves  conspicuous  in  peace  and  in  war. 

But  that  is  not  all.  In  our  revolutionary  days,  a  great  and 
very  ancient  authority  is  an  element  of  stability  not  to  be 
despised.  Russian  Bolshevism  has  terrified  the  better  classes  all 
over  the  world.^  Even  agnostics  reverence  a  power  which  may 
avert  similar  collapses  of  civilisation.^  This  does  not  mean  nor 
foreshadow  a  truly  religious  revival,  though  there  are  symptoms 
of  such  a  revival  in  Russia ;  but  it  does  mean  for  all  Churches, 
and  especially  for  the  well-organised  Roman  Church,  a  renewal 

*  Marc  Slonim,  Le  Bolchivisme,  1921. 

*  See  Leg  Etudes,  August  5,  1921. 


EPILOGUE  215 

of  past  influence  in  politics.  Empires  and  kingdoms  have 
crumbled  to  dust;  the  "servant  of  God's  servants''  in  the 
Vatican,  having  survived  them  all,  and  teaching  a  better  lesson 
than  theirs,  has  at  least  a  chance  of  being  recognised  once 
more  as  one  of  the  solid  pillars  of  this  shaken  world. 


INDEX 


Ab^lard,  81,  94 

Acilius  Glabrio,  45 

Acts  of  the  Apostles,  2-3  ;  date  of,  26  ; 
apocryphal  Acts,  26-7 

Adrian  I,  Pope,  68 

IV,  Pope,  72 

Albertua  Magnus,  94 

Albigenses,  73,  92,  97 ;  and  see  Cathari 

Alexandria  Church,  52,  102 

Alfonso  of  Liguori,  182 

Alva,  Duke  of,  125. 

Amboise,  conspiracy  of,  130 

Ambrose,  St.,  58-9 

America  :  Moravian  influence  in,  96  ; 
bigotry  in  (eighteenth  century), 
101 ;  Catholicism  in,  122,  166,  214  ; 
French  Protestants  and  Quakers  in, 
127-8;  the  Inquisition  in,  146-7; 
Baptists,  Methodists,  and  Plymouth 
Brethren  in,  159-61 ;  Jesuits  in,  183  ; 
polygamy  forbidden  in,  167  ;  reli- 
gious liberty  in,  166 

Americanism,  197-8 

Anabaptists,  113-14,  117 

Anglican  Church  :  Edward  VI's  Prayer 
Book,  118;  in  the  Commonwealth 
and  Stuart  period,  126-7  ;  the  Wes- 
leyan  rupture,  160  ;  in  eaily  nine- 
teenth century,  162  ;  the  Ritualistic 
party,  163-5  ;  their  attitude  to  the 
Roman  Church,  124  ;  relations  with 
the  Orthodox  Church,  103 

Anglo-Saxons,  64,  161-2 

Anselm,  Archbishop,  93 

Antichrist,  35-6 

Antioch,  52 

Antonelli,  Cardinal,  172  srq. 

Apocalypse,  The,  2-3,  31-2  ;  St. 
Peter's,  2 

ApoUos,  41,  43 

Arab  Empire,  64 

Arianism,  53-4,  58 

Aristotle,  93 

Armenians,  102 

Arminians,  125 

Arnaud,  Henri,  92 

Arnaulds,  140-2 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  90 

Art  in  the  Church,  89 

Asia,  Central,  65 

217 


Assumption,  Feast  of  the,  81 

Athanasian  Creed,  54 

Atheism  :  denial  of  Roman  gods,  45  ; 
free  thought  in  seventeenth  century, 
139 ;  in  eighteenth  century,  158 

Atonement  doctrine,  93 

Augustine,  St.,  and  his  teaching,  11 
and  note  \  121 ;  literary  campaign 
against  the  Donatista,  51,  55  and 
note^  ;  the  Jansenist  controversy, 
140-1  ;  Luther's  attitude  to  his  doc- 
trine, 111 ;  cited  on  Purgatory,  56 

Augustine  the  Monk,  64 

Augustinians,  110 

Austria,  123  ;  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
128  ;  Catholic  re-action  and  Pro- 
testantism in  (eighteenth  century), 
168;  Los  von  Rom  movement  (nine- 
teenth century),  168-9  ;  the  Jesuits 
in,  182-3 

Avenir,  L',  175 

Avignon,  74,  171 

Bacon,  Roger,  94 

Baptismal  rites,  90,  102,  167 

Baptists,  159  and  note ;  and  see  Ana- 
baptists 

Barabbas,  19 

Barlaam  and  Joasaph,  78 

Barnabas,  St.,  41 

Basil,  St.,  58 

Basle,  Council  of,  75 

Bayle,  139 

Becket,  Thomas  a,  72 

Benedict  XV,  Pope,  213-14 

Benedict,  St.,  51 

Benedictines,  attitude  of,  to  Jesuits, 
123  ;  to  Pilgrimages,  187  ;  erudition 
of,  at  St.  Maur,  138  ;  and  see  Moimsti- 
cism 

Bernard,  St.,  76  ;  quoted,  93 

Beziers,  91 

Bible,  Cyril's  translation  of,  65 ; 
Erasmus'  of  N.T.,  95  ;  Wyclit's,  95; 
Luther's,  111 ;  see  also  Scriptures 

Bishops,  33,  43,  97,  124;  in  Eastern 
Church,  103-4 

Bismarck,   Prince,  184 

Black  Pope,  the,  182 

Blondel,  69 


218 


INDEX 


Bohemia,  65,  96 

Boileau's  epitaph  on  Arnaiul,  142 

Bollandists,  186 

Bolshevism,  104,  212,  214 

Bonald,  174 

Boniface,  St.,  64 

VIII,  Pope,  70 

Bora,  Catherine,  112 

Bossuet,   141,  144;    cited    101   7io(e*; 

quoted,  137 
Bouillon,  Godfrey  de,  66-7 
Boulanger,  General,  178 
Bridget,  St.,  79,  82 
Brotherhood  of    the  Holy  Sacrament, 

121 
Brueys,  Pierre  de,  91 
Buddhism,    78,    90;     Neo-Buddhists, 

191-2 
Bulgaria,  65,  103 
Bunyan,  John,  159  7io(e 
Byzantium,  102 

Calas,  155 

Calixtenes,  84,  96 

Calvinism:  115-16,  119-20,  140; 
eucharistic  doctrine  of,  110  ;  in  Eng- 
land and  Scotland,  159,  162 

Camalduli,  Order  of,  75 

Camisards,  135 

Canon  of  the  Church,  2,  27  seq.,  48 

Canonisation,  83 ;  no  provision  for,  in 
Eastern  Church,  104 

Carcassonne,  91 

Carlstadt,  112 

Carmelites,  Order  of,  76 

Carthusians,  Order  of,  76  ;  attitude  to 
Jesuits,  123 

Casuistry,  121 

Cathari,  78,  90 

Catherine  of  Siena,  St.,  79,  82 

Catholic  Apostolic  Church  (Irvingites), 
161 

Institute  of  Paris,  198-9 

Celibacy  of  the  Priesthood:  44,  52; 
influence  on  the  Roman  Church,  87  ; 
not  enforced  in  the  Eastern  Church, 
103;  "Luther's  door,"  112 

Celsus,  True  Discourse  "  by,  46 

Cenobites,  51 

Cerinthus  the  Gnostic,  43 

Charlemagne,  65,  68 

Charles  I,  King  of  England,  126 

II,  King  of  England,  126-7 

V,    Emperor  of  Germany,    113- 


114 


IX,  King  of  France,  131-2 


Chateaubriand,  155,  174 
China,  65,  122,  123 
Christ,  str.  Jesus 
Christian  Brothers,  138 


Christian  Scientists,  161 

Christianity,  origin  of,  1-2,  40-41 ; 
as  a  spiritual  force,  23-24 ;  first 
communities,  40  seq. ;  supersedes 
Judaism  and  defeats  Gnosticism,  43; 
spread  and  effects  of,  44-5 ;  lying 
rumours  concerning,  46  ;  early  litera- 
ture regarding,  46-7  ;  fine  charac- 
teristics of  early  Christians,  47 ;  in 
a  privileged  position  under  Constan- 
tine,  49-51 ;  imposed  on  Europe  by 
the  Church,  63  ;  evolution  of  modern 
Christianity,  48  ;  rites  and  festivals 
borrowed  from  paganism,  52-3,  59, 
89,  103 

Christmas,  52 

Chrysostom,  St.,  58,  59 

Church,  Primitive  {see  also  Anglican, 
Eastern,  Roman),  organisation  of, 
about  A. D.  80,  43;  becomes  a  govern- 
ing body,  48 ;  changes  etfected  in 
fourth  century,  52-3 ;  Hierarchy 
adopted,  52 ;  Hellenised,  53  ;  perse- 
cutions by, 53, 55  ;  growth  of  luxury 
in,  59 ;  the  Coptic  Church,  56 

of  Christ  Scientist,  161 

of  Latter  Day  Saints,  167 

of  New  Jerusalem,  190 

Cicero,  121 

Circumcelliones,  51 

Cistercians,  Order  of,  76 

Civil  tribunals,  bigotry  of,  101 

Clara,  St.,  of  Assisi,  78 

Claude,  Bishop  of  Turin,  91 

Clement,  Bishop  of  Rome,  34,  48 

II,  Pope,  71 

X,  Pope,  142 

XI,  Pope,  142 

XIV,  Pope,  156 

Clermont,  Council  of,  67 

Clotilde,  64 

Clovis,  59 

Cluny,  Order  of,  75,  86 

Coligny,  Adm.  de,  130-1 

Columba,  St.,  76 

Comte,  Auguste,  194 

Conceptualists,  93 

Concordat  of  1516,  118,  156,  170; 
Concordat  of  1802,  170-71  ;  of  1813, 
171 

Confession,  auricular,  85-6  ;  the  con- 
fessional box,  120 

Confessors  as  distinguished  from  mar- 
tyrs, 47  _ 

Congregationalists,  124 

Constance,  Council  of,  74-5,  139; 
burning  of  John  Huss,  96,  98 

Constantine,  Emperor,  seeks  support  of 
Christians,  49  ;  so-called  donation  of 
Italy  to  the  Pope,  68 


INDEX 


219 


Constantinople,  the  seat  of  the  Empire, 
53 ;  Church  of  St.  Sophia,  59,  66 ; 
the  Latin  Empire  of,  68 

,  the  Patriarch  of,  102-3 

,  Council  of,  54 

Convents,  morality  in,  76 

Coptic  Church,  the,  56 

Corporation  and  Test  Acts,  162 

Cranmer,  Archbishop,  117 

Creeds,  54  ;  and  see  Symbols 

Croix,  La,  179 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  126-7 

Cross,  "the  true,"  65 

Crusades,  the,  66-8 ;  not  invoked  by 
Christian  Princes,  64  ;  the  instigators 
of,  66;  in  south  of  France  (1208), 
90-1 

Cyprian,  Bishop,  49 

Cyril,  St.,  50,  55 

the  Monk,  64-5 

D'Alembert,  153-4 

Darby,  Rev.  John,  160-1 

Darius,  20 

Darwinism,  196-7 

Deacons,  40,  43 

Dead,  the,  prayers  for,  57;  Feast  of, 
86;  baptism  for,  167 

Deeius,  Emperor,  49 

Decretals,  false,  68-9 

Denmark,    65,  112 

Develup7nent  of  Christian  Doctrine, 
Essay  on  the  (Newman),  165 

Didache,  the,  34 

Diderot,  152  scq. 

Diocletian,  Emperor,  49 

Docetes,  the,  21 

Dodwell  cited,  46 

DoUinger,  Canon,  183 

Dominicans,  Order  of,  73,  76,  79 ;  their 
treatment  of  Huss,  96  ;  in  charge  of 
Inquisition  tribunals,  97-9,  101  ; 
the  "Monks' Quarrel,"  110 ;  attitude 
to  Copernicus,  147 ;  reconciled  to 
the  Jesuits,  183;  and  see  Monasti- 
cism 

Domitian,  45 

Douatists,  50-1,  55 

Dragonades,  134-5 

Dreyfus,  Alfred,  155,  178-80,  185,  207 

Dukhobortsy,  169 

Duns  Scotus,  94 

Easter,  53 

Eastern  Church,  102-4 ;  Immaculate 
Conception  doctrine  not  accepted  by, 
82;  worship  of  images  in,  88-9,  103; 
attitude  of,  to  clergy  and  monks, 
89,  104  ;  "Old  Believers  "  in  Russia, 
169 


East  Indies,  the  Inquisition  in,  147 

Ebionites,  25,  47 

Eddy,  Mrs.  M.  B.,  161 

Egypt,  51 

Elders:  primitive,  43;  Baptist,  159 

Elizabeth,  Queen  of  England,  118 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  166 

Encyclopxdia,   The,  139,  152  scq. 

England :  Church  of,  see  Anglican 
Church;  Normans  and  Danes  in,  eon- 
verted,  65  ;  in  relation  to  the  Holy 
See,  69,  72-3, 118  ;  Cromwell's  treat- 
ment of  Catholics,  126;  the  "No 
Popery  "motto,  127,  164;  Noncon- 
formists in,  159,  162;  the  Tractariau 
Movement,  163;  attitude  to  Pius 
IX  (1858),  173  ;  to  Jesuits,  183 

Ephesus,  42-3  ;  Council  of,  55-6 

Episcopacy,  33,  43,  124  ;  in  Eastern 
Church,  103-4 

Epistles  :  in  the  Canon  27  scq.;  others, 
32-3 

Erasmus,  95 

Erastianism,  127 

Essenes,  51 

Eucharist,  the,  44  ;  mystery  surround- 
ing, 46;  dogmas  regarding— transub- 
stautiatiou,  etc.,  83-4,  110,  118; 
the  elevation  of  the  Host,  84  ;  the 
Feast  of  the  Holy  Sacrament,  84-5  ; 
Communion  in  one  kind,  84,  102 ; 
Luther's  doctrine,  110 

Eudoxia,  Empress,  58 

Evolutionary  Catholicism,  165,  197 

Excommunications,  70 ;  abuse  of,  98 

Exorcisms,  112 

Fabliaiix  of  fourteenth  century,  139 

Falloux,  Comte  de,  177 

Feasts  and  Festivals  :  Sundays,  43 ; 
Christmas,  52 ;  Easter,  53  ;  Blessed 
Virgin  Mary's  Assumption,  81  ;  the 
Holy  Sacrament,  84-5  ;  the  Dead, 
86;  Fools,  88;  the  Sacred  Heart, 
186 

Fenelon  quoted  on  civil  toleration,  137  ; 
Maximcs  des  Saints  and  Tdtviaqice 
by,  144-5 

Fideism,  201-2 

Filioque  quarrel,  102 

Flagellants,  92 

Flavins  Clemens,  45 

Florence,  96-7  ;  Council  of,  57,  102 

Fourierism,  195 

Fox,  George,  127 

France,  Church  of,  see  Galilean 
Church  ;  attitude  to  Peter's  Pence, 
70;  Monastic  orders  in,  75,  137-8  ; 
Crusade  against  Albigenses  (1208), 
90-1;     the     Reformation     118-20; 


220 


INDEX 


Concordat  of  1516,  118,  156,  176; 
images  and  relics,  119  ;  attitude  to 
Jesuits,  123 ;  French  Protestants  in 
America,  127  ;  demand  of  the  States- 
General  for  liberty  of  worship  (1561), 
130  ;  under  the  last  Valois,  130-2  ; 
massacre  of  S.  Bartholomew,  131  ; 
Edict  of  Nantes,  132-4  ;  its  revoca- 
tion, 134-7 ;  Protestants  under 
Louis  XIV,  133  seq. ;  state  of, 
under  Louis  XIII,  137-8  ;  libertinage 
in  seventeenth  century,  139-40 ; 
Acceptans  and  Eefusans,  143 ; 
Catholic  with  Jansenist  tendency  in 
eighteenth  century,  152 ;  Protest- 
ants admitted  to  Civil  rights  (1787), 
155;  the  Revolution,  152  ;  National 
Assembly's  decrees  regarding  re- 
ligion, 156-7;  Civil  calendar  (1793- 
1805),  157;  persecution  of  Catholics, 
157;  the  Directory:  revival  of 
Catholicism,  170  scq.  ;  Concordat 
of  1801,  170-1;  ended,  180,  185; 
the  Republic's  war  against  Roman 
Republic,  172  ;  Liberal  Catholicism, 
174  scq.  ;  political  reaction  (1816), 
176;  the  White  Terror,  176;  Ex- 
travagances of  the  Congi-egation 
(1825),  176-7  ;  education  controlled 
by  the  Church  and  Jesuits,  135-6, 
168,  177,  183  ;  the  Loi  Falloux 
(1850),  177,  180  ;  Jesuitical  influence, 
178,  186-7;  clerical  influence  after 
1870-71,  178;  the  Dreyfus  affair, 
155,  l7«-80,  185,  207;  Protestant- 
ism after  1871,  180  ;  Freemasonry, 
192-4;  suppression  of  religious  in- 
struction, 208  ;  canonisation  of  Joan 
of  Arc,  212,  214  ;  relations  with  the 
Papacy  resumed,  214 

Francis  I,  King  of  France,  118-19, 
170 

Francis,  St.,  of  Assisi,  77  and  note^; 
"the  sweet  memory  of,"  78 

Franciscans,  Order  of,  76-9 ;  laymen 
and  women  aflSliated  with,  78  ;  oppo- 
sition to  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  94 ; 
treatment  of  Savonarola,  97  ;  see  also 
Monasticism 

Franks,  64 

Frederick  I,  Emperor,  90 

II,  Emperor,  73 

Free  thought,  139,  158,  207-8 

Freemasons,  172,  192-4 

Fribourg  University,  181 

Friends,  see  Quakers 

of  God,  92 

Galileo,  147-8 
Gall,  St.,  76 


Galilean  Church  :  demands  persecu- 
tion of  Protestants,  133;  under 
LouisXIII,  137-8  ;  attitude  to  Rome : 
the  four  resolutions  of  1682,  138-9; 
in  eighteenth  century,  152 ;  under 
the  Revolution,  156-7 ;  separated 
from  the  State,  180,  185  ;  opposition 
to  Infallibility  decree,  184  ;  blight- 
ing influence  on,  of  Pius  X,  185 

Gallicanism,  74 

Garibaldi,  173 

Geneva,  Council  of,  115-16 

Gentiles,  41,  64 

Germany :  conflict  with  the  Papacy, 
59,  71 ;  Christianised,  64  ;  Innocent 
VIII's  Bull,  101  ;  reaction  against 
Romanism,  109;  Lutheranism,  112- 
14,  129  ;  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  128 ; 
Baptists,  159;  toleration  established 
(1781),  168 ;  opposition  to  Papal 
Infallibility,  183 ;  Catholic  party, 
the  pivot  of  the  policy  of  the  Empire, 
184  ;  historical  criticism  in,  95, 
196  ;  AVilliam  IPs  German  God,  212 

Ghibellines  and  Guelphs,  72 

Glossolaly,  44 

Gnosticism,  25,  43-4,  47-8 

Golden  Legend,  83 

Gospels,  the,  not  the  work  of  eye- 
witnesses, 3-4,  6-7 ;  dates  of,  5-6 ; 
synoptical  gospels,  6-7,  10-11 ;  dis- 
crepancies with  S.  John's,  10  ;  legends 
in,  22 ;  untrustworthy  evidence  in, 
23;  Apocryphal  Gospels,  24-5  ;  divine 
inspiration  of  Canonical  Gospels 
affirmed,  48;  no  foundation  therein 
for  the  seven  sacraments,  85 

Gr&udier,  Urbain,  101  note^ 

Greek  Empire  lost  to  Christianity,  68 

Greeks,  modern,  103 

Gregory  VII,  Pope,  66,  69-71 

IX,  Pope,  creates  Inquisition  tri- 
bunals, 97 

XIII,  Pope,  Huguenot  policy  of, 


132 


XVI,  Pope,  182 

of  Nazianzen,  St.,  58 

Guises,  130-1 
Gunpowder  xilot,  126 
Guyon,  Madame,  144-5 
Guzman,  Domingo  di,  79 

Hammer  of  Witches,  The,  101 

Hapsburgs,  74 

Harnack,  199 

Hegel,  196-7 

Henry  II,  King  of  England,  72 

Ill,  Emperor,  71 

IV,  Emperor,  71 

IV,  King  of  Navarre,  130-3 


INDEX 


221 


Henry  VIII,  King  of  England,  116-18 

Heresy  {see  also  Arianism,  etc. ),  edicts 
against,  54-5,  73  ;  Church's  attitude 
to,  87-8;  detinition  of  a  heretic, 
89 ;  two  classes  of  heresies,  89 

Hermits,  51 

Historical  criticism,  95,  196  ;  see  also 
Modernism 

Hohenstaufens,  74 

Holland,  Inquisition  in  (1565),  125; 
attitude  of,  to  Catholic  worship,  125  ; 
Huguenot  emigration  into,  134; 
Jansenists  in,  143 

Holy  Alliance,  the,  169 

League,  the,  123,  131-2 

Honorius,  Emperor,  50 

,  Pope,  crusade  of,  against  Prus- 
sians, 65 

Hospitallers,  80 

Hugo,  Victor,  175 

Huguenots:  origin  of,  115;  massacres 
of,  in  1562,  130 ;  in  1572,  131 ; 
Edict  of  Nantes  and  its  revocation, 
132  seq 

Humanists,  95 

Hungary,  65,  67 

Huss,  John,  95-6,  93 

Huxley,  Professor,  quoted,  195  note  ' 

Hypatia,  50 

Iconoclasts,  88-9,  102 ;  ai\d  see  Image 
worship 

Icons,  103 

Ignatius,  St.,  21,  22  note 

Image  worship,  57,  89,  103,  119 

Imitation  of  Christ,  the,  94 

Immaculate  Conception  :  meaning  of, 
82 ;  the  doctrine  promulgated,  102, 
165,  173  ;  Lourdes  vision  and  cures, 
188  and  note^ 

Incarnation,  doctrine  of,  in  the  Gos- 
pels, 11-12,  14-22;  Motlier  of  God 
controversy,  55  ;  adoption  theory, 
81 

Independents,  124,  127 

India,  Catholicism  in,  122 

Indulgences,  66;  sale  of,  69,  120; 
monks'  trafBc  in,  86-7 ;  given  to 
Inquisitors,  98 ;  the  final  cause  of 
the  Reformation,  110;  distributed 
to  Huguenot  persecutors,  132 ;  in 
contrast  with  Lourdes  cures,  189  and 
7iote 

Infallibility  dogma,  165,  173-4 ;  and 
see  under  Papacy 

Innocent  III,  Pope,  73,  90 

VIII,  Pope,  101 

IX,  Pope,  136,  139 

Inquisition,  the  Papal,  precursors  of, 
65;    establishment    of    (1232),    91; 


punishments  inflicted  by,  80-1,  92, 
98-9  ;  methods  of,  98-9 ;  organisa- 
tion of,  97-8  ;  manuals  of,  99 ;  crimes 
of,  99-101;  decline  and  death  of,  152 

Inquisition,  the  Spanish,  124,  145-7 

Invocation  of  saints,  57 

Ireland  :  evangelised,  64  ;  mercenaries 
from,  as  persecutors  of  the  Waldenses, 
92  ;  faithful  to  Kome,  118,  214  ;  per- 
secutions in,  127 

Irene,  Empress,  89 

Irving,  Edward,  161 

Islamism,  crusades  against,  64-6;  in- 
fluence of,  on  Templars,  Hospitallers 
and  Jesuits,  123;  persecution  of 
Musulmans,  145-6 

Italy,  so-called  donation  of,  to  Pope 
Sylvester,  68 ;  Protestantism  in 
(1542),  122;  the  Carbonari,  172; 
attitude  of  the  new  kingdom  to  the 
Papacy,  173-4,  214 

James,  St.,  42 ;  Epistle  of,  2,  30 

I,  King  of  England,  126 

II,  King  of  England,  127 

Jansenism,  140  seq.;  the  Bull  Uni- 
genittts,  142-3 

Japan,  122-3 

Jerome,  St.,  55,  57-8 

of  Prague,  95-6 

Jerusalem :  the  compromise  at  first  con- 
ference, 41  ;  destruction  of  (a.d.  70), 
44  ;  massacre  (1098),  66  ;  overthrow 
of  the  Christian  kingdom,  68  ;  re- 
conquest  of  (1918),  212 

Jesuits,  the  Order  of :  their  control  of 
education,  and  their  social,  political 
and  religious  influence,  78,  120-1, 
177,  185-6  ;  the  Jansenist  contro- 
versy, 140-1  ;  abolished  in  1773, 
151,  155-6,  181;  re-established 
(1814),  172,  181-2  ;  Propaganda  and 
the  Roman  College  entiiisted  to 
(1824-36),  182  ;  in  France  after 
1848,  177 ;  in  the  Dreyfus  aftair, 
179 ;  responsible  for  reactionary 
policy  of  Pius  IX,  183,  186  ;  duped 
by  Freemasons,  193;  their  "Trinity, 
54,  186 

Jesus  Christ:  Myth  of  Christ,  1,  22 
aninote;  genealogies  of  Jesus,  11; 
history  of:  contemporary  authors' 
silence  regarding,  14-15 ;  no  definite 
date  of  His  birth,  activities  and 
death,  16-18 ;  Passion  Stories,  17 
seq.  ;  the  Crucifixion,  18-20 ;  no 
relation  to  Socialism,  196  note ;  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  10  ;  His  speedy 
return  expected  bv  Primitive  Church, 
44 


222 


INDEX 


Jewish  particularism  and  Christiau 
Universalism,  struggle  between, 
41-2 ;  influence  of  Judaism  on 
Christianity,  43 

Jews,  dispersal  of,  44-5  ;  laws  against, 
73;  their  persecution  in  Spain, 
145-6  ;  regulations  regarding,  in 
Fi-ance,  171 ;  clerical  antagonism  to, 
178  seq. 

Joan  of  Arc,  99,  212,  214 

John  the  Apostle,  St.,  32,  42  ;  Epistles 
of,  2,  30  ;  Gospel  of,  2-3 ;  its  unique 
nature,  6,  8 ;  its  sources  and  author- 
ship, 9-10,  42-3  ;  theological  and 
non-historic  in  character,  12 

the  Presbyter,  42 

King  of  England,  73,  74 

XXII,  Pope,  tariff  for  sin  formu- 
lated by,  69 

Joseph,  St.,  worship  of,  54,  186 

II,  Emperor  of  Germany,  168 

Josephus  silent  regarding  Jesus,  14- 
15  and  note  ^ 

Jubilees,  87 

Judas  the  Apostle,  18 

Jude,  St.,  Epistle  of,  2,  30,  31 

Julian,  Emperor,  50,  51 

Juliair  Calendar,  104 

Justin,  35 

Justinian,  Emperor,  50 

Justus  of  Tiberias,  15 

Kant,  93,  196 

Kieff,  64 

Knights  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  80 

of  the  Sword,  80 

Templars,  80-1 

Knox,  John,  118 
Kriidener,  Baroness,  169-70 
Kyrie  Eleison,  the,  70 

La  Croix,  179 

La  Rochelle,  133 

La  Salette,  187-8 

La  Trappe  Community,  138 

L'Avenir,  175 

Lacordaire,  Pere,  175 

Lamennais,  Abb^  de,  175 

Lateran  Council,  Fourth,  67,  73 

Latin  in  Church  Services,  70,  124 

Laud,  Archbishop,  126 

Lazarists,  138 

Lea  :  History  of  the  Inquisition,  cited, 
101 

Legends  and  Stories:  of  St.  Francis,  77, 
79;  of  Catherine  of  Siena,  79-80, 
82 ;  of  Templars,  80 ;  of  the  house 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  81-2; 
of  St.  Bridget,  82;  of  the  tailor's 
apprentice,     82;     Golden     Legend, 


83;  Hole  in  the  Moon,  84;  "The 
Prayers  of  Odilon,"  86;  Luther's 
vision  of  the  Devil,  112;  John  of 
Leyden's  vision,  114 ;  Pascal's 
niece,  141  ;  the  Deacon  Paris,  143; 
Madame  Guyon,  145  ;  the  revela- 
tion to  Joseph  Smith,  166 ;  Madame 
de  Kriidener,  169-70;  Marie  Ala- 
coque's  vision,  186;  La  Salette, 
187  ;  the  Immaculate  Conception, 
188 ;  Lourdes,  189  ;  Swedenborg, 
190;  Helena  Blavatsky,  191-2; 
Diana  Vaughan,  193;  Mons  Retreat, 
213 

Leo  the  Isaurian,  Emperor,  89 

X,  Pope,   75,   101;    Bull   of  ex- 

communication  burnt  by  Luther, 
110  ;  concordat  with  Francis  I,  118, 
156,  176 

XIII,  Pope,  31  ;  efforts  towards 

re-union,  102,  164  ;  advice  to  French 
Catholics,  178,  185;  diplomacy  of, 
197,  199  ;  Prov identissimus  Encycli- 
cal, 199  ;  estimate  of,  184-6 

Leyden,  John  of,  114 

Libellatici,  49 

Lindsay,  Theophilus,  165 

Literature  of  antiquity  preserved  by 
the  Church,  63 

Lithuanians,  65 

Loisy,  Abbe,  165,  199-200;  quoted, 
on  the  canon,  2-5;  on  Christianity 
as  a  spiritual  force,  23-4  ;  on  the 
Jansenists,  141;  on  President 
Wilson,  214  ;  cited,  26 

Lollards,  95 

Lombard,  Peter,  85 

and  Venetian  Valley  witch-burn- 
ings, 101 

Lombards,  68,  91 

Loretto,  81-2 

Louis,  St.,  66,  74 

XIV,  King  of  France,  cruelty  of, 

to  Protestants,  127  ;  revokes  Edict 
of  Nantes,  134  seq.;  attitude  to 
French  Catholicism,  137  ;  re-claims 
the  Regale,  139 

Lourdes,  188-9 

Loyola,  Ignatius,  123;  The  Book  of 
apiritual  Exercises,  123 

Loyson,  Hyacinthe,  184 

Luke,  St.,  42  ;  Gospel  of,  2-3,  5-7 

Luther,  Martin,  31,  36,  114  ;  the 
Reformation,  108-13  ;  at  the  Witten- 
berg Synod,  1 1 2-1 3  ;  his  translation 
of  the  Bible,  111 ;  Captivity  of 
Babylon,  110 

Lyons  :  persecution  in  A.D.  177,  46  ; 
thirteenth  council  of,  72 ;  the  Poor 
Men  of,  91 


INDEX 


223 


Magdeburg,  128-9 

Maistre,  Joseph  de,  174-5 

Malagiida,  155 

Manichaeism,  55,  89,  90 

Marcion,  9,  48 

Marie  Alacoque  beatified,  187 

ilark,  St.,  42 ;  his  Gospel,  2-7 ;  its 
text  tampered  with,  4  ;  its  basis,  9 

Maronites,  102 

Martineau,  James,  166 

Martyrs,  47 

Mary,  St.  {see  also  Immaculate  Con- 
ception) :  belief  in  her  virginity,  12  ; 
story  of  her  sojoiu-n  in  Ephesus  and 
death,  43 ;  Mother  of  God  controversy, 
55 ;  growth  of  her  worship;  71,  81-2, 
185 

Mary  Tudor,  Queen,  117 

Mars,  83 

Mathurins,  the  Order  of,  76 

Matilda,  Countess  of  Tuscany,  71 

Matthew,  St.,  42 ;  his  Gospel,  2-3, 
5-7  ;  its  basis,  9 

Mazdeism  (Persian),  90 

Medici,  96-7 

Melaucthon,  112 

Mendicant  friars,  76-7  ;  their  traffic 
in  Indulgences,  86-7 

Messiah,  the,  11-12 

Methodism,  96,  159,  160 

Methodius,  64-5 

Micholet  quoted,  66 

Middle  Ages  :  conflict  of  the  Papacy  v, 
the  Empire,  71  ;  unpopularity  of 
monks  and  nims  in,  76  ;  impression 
on,  of  St.  Francis'  life,  77-8  ;  Christi- 
anity "  high  and  dry  "  in,  78  ;  cha- 
racteristics of,  89  ;  Catholicism  of,  94 ; 
Jewish  books  of,  95  ;  Satan  all-per- 
vading in,  100-1;  Byzantine  Greeks 
of,  103;  j^rolongation  of,  in  Spain, 
146;  survival  of,  amongst  the  intel- 
lectually deficient  of  eighteenth 
century,  152 ;  slavery  in,  204-5 ; 
Church's  supremacy  in,  based  on 
literary  frauds,  208 

Milton,  159  and  iwte 

Miracles,  Christ's,  allegorical  character 

of,  13 
Missionaries,  202-4 
Modernism,   141,    165,  198  seq.  ;  atti- 
tude to,   of  Leo  XIII  and  Pius  X, 
185,  200 ;  attitude  of,  to  historical 
basis  of  the  Scriptures,  201 
Molay,  Jacques  de,  81 
Moliere,  139,  141  ;  Tariuffe,  121  note 
Monasticism  {see  also  names  of  Orders), 
good  derived  from,   51-2  ;  Crusades 
instigated  by  monks,  66  ;  spread  of, 
75  ;  reform  demanded,  76  ;  fame  of 


the  Mendicant  Orders,  76  ;  work 
done  by,  and  decline  of,  before  1200, 
76  ;  monks'  sale  of  Indulgences, 
86-7  ;  image  manufacture  profitable 
to  monks,  89 ;  monks  in  Greek 
Church  held  in  no  esteem,  104 

Monophysism,  55-6 

Mons  retreat  superstition,  213 

Montaigne,  139 

Montalembert,  Conite  de,  175-6 

Montanism,  48-9 

Montesquieu,  153 

Montuiartre  Basilica,  187 

Moravians,  96 

Morraonigm,  166-7 

Music  in  religious  services,  124 

Musulinans,  see  Islamism 

Mysticism  in  seventeenth  century,  144  ; 
in  eighteenth  century,  158  ;  Church's 
attitude  to,  189 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  132  seq.,  155,  and  see 
under  France 

Napoleon  I,  Emperor,  22  note  ;  as  First 
Consul :  his  Organic  Articles  (1801), 
170-1  ;  suppresses  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion (1808),  146  ;  his  attitude  to 
Jesuits,  181  note 

Ill,  Emperor,  relations  with  Pius 

IX,  173-4,  178 

Navarre,  Queen  of  (Marguerite),  118- 
20 

Neo- Buddhists,  191-2 

Nepotism,  120 

Nero,  Emperor,  45 

Nestorian  chmches,  55,  65 

Netherlands,  see  Holland 

Newman,  Cardinal,  163-5  ;  his  in- 
fluence on  Modernism,  165,  198 

New  Testament,  see  under  Scriptures 

Nictea,  Councils  of  (325),  53-4;  (787), 
102 

Nicholas  of  Cues,  68 

Noailles,  Cardinal  de,  142-3 

Nominalists,  93 

Normans  and  Danes,  conversion  of,  65 

Nuns,  51,  138  ;  in  Eastern  Church,  103 

CEcumenical  Patriarch  102 

Old  Catholics,  183-4 

Oratorians,  138  ;  their  liberalism,  187 

Origen,  46,  48,  49  ;  quoted  on  non- 
resistance,   195  and  note^ 

Original  sin,  disputes  regarding,  24, 
56 ;  defined  by  Council  of  ftent, 
122 

Oxford  University,  163 

Pagan  influence  on  the  Church,  52-3, 
59,  89  ;  on  Eastern  Church,  103 


224 


INDEX 


Paleologi,  68 

Papacy,  the,  not  founded  by  Jesus, 
12  ;  not  founded  by  Peter,  48  ;  in- 
stigates the  Crusades,  66  ;  plunged 
into  poverty,  68  ;  Crusades  tax,  In- 
dulgences, etc. ,  67,  69,  72  ;  Peter's 
Pence,  69-70  ;  Denier  de  St.  Pierre, 
70 ;  debasement  of,  in  ninth  and 
tenth  centuries,  70 ;  at  end  of  fif- 
teenth century,  75 ;  Schism  :  the 
rival  Popes,  74 ;  relations  with  the 
Templars,  81 ;  responsible  for  the  In- 
quisition, 98-9,  101 ;  effect  on,  of  the 
Counter-Reformation,  120  ;  attitude 
to  Huguenots,  130-2  ;  Edict  of 
Nantes  never  accepted  by,  133  ;  re- 
sponsibility and  rejoicings  for  its 
revocation,  136-7 ;  attitude  to  the 
Spanish  Inquisition,  146 ;  Infalli- 
bility doctrine  promulgated  (1870), 
165, 173-4  ;  the  doctrine  opposed  by 
Eastern  Church,  102  ;  by  Galilean 
Church,  139,  184  ;  by  Anglican 
Church,  164  ;  by  German  Bishops, 
183-4;  temporal  power  of:  its 
foundation,  68-9 ;  the  suzerainty 
claim  and  medieval  conflict  with 
Germany,  59,  71,  72,  74  ;  Concordat 
of  1122,  72 ;  supreme  power  in 
Europe,  67  ;  pretensions  to  govern 
Christendom,  102;  decline  of  tempo- 
ral power  (1216),  73  ;  its  restoration 
(1815),  172:  its  diminution  (1860), 
173;  its  end  (1870),  174;  its  loss  a 
gain  to  spiritual  dignity,  184 

Papal  States,  the  :  Revenues  from,  69 ; 
niisgovernment  of,  172 ;  Mentana, 
173 

Papias,  Bishop,  6-8 ;  cited,  25 

Paraguay,  Jesiiits  in,  123 

Paris  {and  see  France) :  observances  of 
the  Holy  Sacrament  in,  85 ;  the 
centre  of  theological  studies  (1150- 
1200),  93-4  ;  attitude  of  the  Uni- 
versity and  Parliament  to  King 
and  Pope  (1516),  118-19  ;  Faculty  of 
Theology  denounces  Jansenism,  141 ; 
Montniartre  Basilica,  187 ;  Catholic 
Institute  of,  198-9 

Pascal :    Provincial  Letters^    141 
note  * 

Pastor  of  Hermas,  The,  33 

Patrick,  St.,  64 

Paul,  St.  :  chronology  of  his  life, 
conversion  and  preaching  of, 
character  of  his  preaching,  21-2  ;  at 
Athens,  188  note'";  legendary  tales 
of  his  trial  and  death,  42 ;  Original 
Sin  dogma  derived  from,  24 ;  his 
attitude  to  women,  26-7,  44,  49  ;  his 


and 


30; 
41; 


theory  of  marriage,  29 ;  his  Epistles  ; 
the  best  historical  evidence  of  Jesus, 
2,  22;  their  nature,  27-9;  false 
epistles  circulated  under  his  name, 
35 ;  the  Peter  and  Paul  rivalry,  26, 
35,  41-2 

Paul  III,  Pope,  Jesuit  Order  instituted 
by,  123  ;  his  attitude  to  slavei-y, 
205 

Peasants'  War,  113-14 

Pelagius,  56 

Pderin,  Le,  187 

Penn,  William,  128 

Pentecost,  53 

Pepin  le  Bref,  68 

Persecutions  {and  see  Inquisitions  ;  also 
Huguenots,  Waldenses,  etc.) :  the 
first,  between  the  synagogue  and  the 
dissenters,  40  ;  so-called  First  (a.d. 
65),  45 ;  under  Domitian,  45  ;  under 
Decius  and  Diocletian,  46  note,  49  ; 
' '  the  ten,  "46  and  note 

Peter,  St.,  primacy  of,  12;  legend  of, 
in  Rome,  30  ;  his  attitude  to  the 
Gentiles,  41  ;  his  death — legendary 
tales,  42 ;  the  Peter  and  Paul  rivalry, 
26,  35,  41-2  ;  his  Epistles,  Apoca- 
lypse and  Gospel,  2,  25,  30-1,  34; 
forgeries,  32 ;  Patrimony  of,  see  Papal 
States 

Peter  the  Hermit,  67 

Philip  the  Deacon,  40 

Philip  the  Fair,  King  of  France,  70, 
74,  80-1 

Philip  II,  King  of  Spain,  123,  124 

Philo  cited,  11  ;  his  silence  regarding 
Jesus,  15 

Photius,  Patriarch,  15,  102 


heretics  in,  124 

its  influence  on  Metho- 


Piedmont,  91 

Pietism,  129; 
dists,  160 

Pilate  traditions,  16-18 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  127 

Pilgrimages  :  in  primitive  times,  65  ;  in 
Eastern  Church,  104  ;  multiplication 
of,  in  nineteenth  century,  187 

Pisa,  Council  of,  74 

PiusV,  Pope,  130 

VII,  Pope,  147  ;    Concordat  with 

France,  170-1 ;  re-establishes  the 
Jesuits  (1814),  172,  181;  his  re- 
actionary policy,  171-2 

IX,     Pope,      canonises     Pedro 

Arbues,  83;  The  Syllabus,  173;  his 
tyranny,  172-4,  178,  183 

X,    Pope,   185;    his   attitude   to 

Modernism,  200 ;  to  the  European 
War,  213 

Plato's  Works  in  Western  Europe,  96 ; 
Hepublic  quoted,  23  and  natt  ^ 


INDEX 


225 


Pliny  the  Younger  :  his  picture  of  the 

early  Christians,  45-6 
Plymouth  Brethren,  160-1 
Poland,  65,  129,  169 
Policeman-God  concept,  154,  177 
Polytheism,  downfall  of,  50 
Poor  Clares,  76,  78 
Port  Royal,  140-2 
Portugal,  Jesuits  expelled  from,  123 
Positivism,  194-5  and  note 
Pragmatism,  74  and  note  i 
Predestination  doctrine,  28-9,  125 
Premonstrants,  the  Order  of,  76 
Presbyterian  System,  124 
Presbyterians,     Anglicanism    rejected 

by,  126-7  ;  Reformed  Presbyterians, 

158 
Priestley,  Joseph,  165-6 
Priests,  derivation  of  name,  43 
Printing  invention,  95,  109 
Priscillian,  31,  55 
Prophecies,   alleged  fulfilments  of,  4, 

22-3  and  note 
Protestantism  (see  also  Reformation): 

origin  of,    113;    as   inspired  by  St. 

Paul   and  St.  Augustine  contrasted 

with  Jesuitical  Catholicism,  121  ;  its 

attitude     to     Scripture,     201 ;     to 

slavery,  206 
Proveuijal  civilisation   as   affected   by 

the  Crusade  and  the  Inquisition,  91 
Prussia,  Jesuits  forbidden  in,  183 
Purgatory,    doctrine   of,    not    in    the 

Gospels,  56 ;    proclaimed  a  dogma  of 

the    Church,    57 ;      abuse    of,     86 ; 

Eastern  Church's  objection  to,  102 
Pusey,  Dr.,  163-4 
Pythagoreans,  51 


Q  document,  8-9 
Quakers,  96,  117, 
Quietism,  144-5 


128 


Rabelais,  139 

Racine,  141 

Rationalism,  93 

Ratisbon  Council  (792),  81 

Ravaillac,  133 

Raymond  VI,  Count  of  Toulouse,  90-1 

Realists,  93 

Reason,  Goddess  of,  157 

Recocfnitions,  The,  34 

Reformation,  the,  causes  leading  to, 
10%seq.  ;  successes  and  miscarriages, 
100,  109;  triumph  of,  at  Basle, 
114;  in  England,  116-18;  in 
France,  118-20  ;  in  Holland,  125  ; 
the  Counter- Reformation,  120-2  ; 
attitude  of  the  Reformed  Churches 
to    Orthodox    Church    and  Roman 


Chm'ch,  103  ;  contrast  between 
Reformed  Chm-ches  and  Roman,  as 
to  relations  with  civil  power,  124 

Regale,  the,  138 

Relics,  worship  of,  57  ;  in  Eastern 
Church,  104;  cures  by,  resembling 
those  by  telepathic  suggestion,  191 

Religious  instruction,  206-8 

order's  and  communities,  51,  75- 

81,  138,  140-2 

wars  of  16th  century,  120 


Remigius,  St.,  64 

Renaissance,  the,  94 

Renan,  Ernest,  198  ;  cited,  34 

Resurrection  doctrine,  a  pious  belief, 
13-14 

Reuchlin,  Hans,  95 

Richelieu,  Cardinal,  101  note*,  128, 
133,  176 

Revivals,  158 

Robespierre,  157 

Rochelle,  La,  133 

Roman  Church,  early  supremacy  of, 
33-48  ;  services  of,  to  medieval 
society,  62-3  ;  inculcates  mercy  in 
theory,  63  ;  democratic  at  base,  63- 
4 ;  violent  proselytism  inaugurated 
A.D.  1000,  65  ;  its  use  of  excommuni- 
cations, 70  ;  simony  rampant  in,  70- 
1  ;  reforms  attempted — in  ninth  and 
tenth  centuries,  91  ;  in  1431,  75; 
Papal  schism  (1378),  see  loiider 
Papacy ;  saints  honom-ed  by,  83 ; 
accepts  Transubstantiation  dogma, 
84 ;  feast  of  the  Holy  Sacrament 
established,  84-5;  decides  (twelfth 
century)  on  the  Seven  Sacraments, 

85  ;  domination  in  temporal  matters 
after  1000,  85  ;  attitude  to  women, 

86  ;  Confession  made  obligatory,  86  ; 
Feast  of  the  Dead  established,  86 ; 
traffic  in  Indulgences,  86,  ayid  see 
Indulgences ;  altitude  to  heresy,  87- 
8 ;  tolerant  within  limits,  88 ;  bar- 
barous usages  permitted,  88  ;  wealth 
and  corruption  of  clergy  (about  1150), 
90;  motivesactuating  the  Inquisition, 
92-3;  recourse  to  the  civil  power, 
98-101;  sorcery  persecutions,  101 
and  note  *  ;  efibrts  towards  re-union, 
102;  exactions  of  Roman  Curia,  109; 
the  Counter-Reformation,  120-22  ; 
contrasted  with  Reformed  Churches 
in  its  relation  to  civil  power,  124 ; 
severe  control  of  education,  135-6, 
168,  177-8, 183  ;  Modernism,  lQ5and 
see  that  heading  ;  Liberal  Catholicism 
in,  175  ;  attitude  to  magic,  191  ;  to 
Freemasonry,  193 ;  to  Socialism,  195  ; 
to  slavery,  204-6;   relation  to  the 


226 


INDEX 


Scriptures,  201 ;  conversions  of  cul- 
tured unbelievers,  202  ;  its  present 
o])portunity,  214-15 

Romanticism,  163 

Rome :  Imperial,  attitude  of,  to  Chris- 
tians, 45-6  ;  a  Christian  capital,  52; 
in  time  of  Leo  X,  75;  besieged  and 
taken  (1155),  90;  French  occupation 
of  (1850-70),  173-4;  Indulgences 
sold  to  provide  funds  for  St.  Peter's, 
110 

Rosary,  the,  85 

Roumanian  Church,  103 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  153-5  ;  influence  on, 
of  Fenelou,  145  ;  (quoted,  20  ;  cited, 
212 

Russia :  early  efforts  to  evangelise,  64  ; 
the  Othodox  Church,  103-4,  169, 
212;  no  real  Christianity  in,  104; 
sects  in,  169  ;  Jesuits  in  (nineteenth 
century),  181  ;  banished,  181 

Rutheuians,  169 

Sacsa,  Feast  of  the,  19-20 

Sacrament,  Feast  of  the  Holy,  84-5 

Sacramental  system,  no  part  of  Christ's 
teaching,  13 

Sacramentarians,  112 

Sacraments,  question  of  efficacy  of: 
the  Douatist  theory,  50 

Sacred  Heart  cult,  186-7 

St.  Bartholomew  massacre,  131  ;  the 
medal,  132 

St.  Germain,  Edict  of,  130,  133 

Saint-Simonism,  194 

Salette,  La,  187-8 

Salvation  Army,  204 

Saturnalia,  the  Roman,  19-20 

Savonarola,  96-7 

Saxony,  113 

Schleiermacher,  163,  196-7 

Scholastic  philosophy,  93-4 

Scotists  and  Thomists,  94 

Scotland  :  Catholic  v.  Protestant  wars 
in,  118  ;  the  Anglican  Liturgy  re- 
fused by  Scottish  Pm-itans,  126  ; 
opposed  to  Erastianism,  127  ;  the 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  162  ; 
disruptions  and  amalgamations  in, 
158  ;  the  Westminster  Confession  in, 
159 

Scriptures,  the,  before  a.d.  150,  2  and 
note  *;  canon  established  about  350, 
2,  27,  48  ;  forbidden  to  the  laity,  85 ; 
Greek  text  of  N.  T.  published  by 
Erasmus  and  translated  into  Latin, 
95  ;  allegorical  interpretation  of, 
190;  infallibility  of:  Providentissi- 
mus  Encyclical,  199 ;  the  historic 
basis  of,  201  ;  authority  of,  guaran- 


teed by  the  Church,  201 ;  translations 

of,    see     Bible  ;     Gospels,    see    that 

heading ;  Pauline  Epistles,  see  under 

PauL 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  10 
Servetus,  Miguel,  115-16 
Sigismund,  Emperor,  96 
Simon,    Richard,    completed    Luther's 

work,  110;  attitude  to  Modernism, 

198 ;  quoted,  133 
Simon  Magus,  34-5 
Simony,  70-1 
Sisters  of  Charitj',  138 
Slavery,  204-6 
Socialism,  195-6 
Socinians,  129 

St.  Sophia,  Church  of,  59,  66 
Spain,  resists  the  Church,  64  ;  attitude 

to  Peter's  Pence,  (0;  the  Inquisition, 

124,  145-7  ;  persecution  of  Jews  and 

Moors,   145  ;  Jesuits  in  (nineteenth 

century),  182 
Spener,  Philip  Jakob,  129 
Spinoza,  196,  198 
Spiritualism,  166,  190-1,  194 
Stephen,  St.,  35,  40 
Suetonius,  15 
Summa  Theologiee,  94 
Sundays,  43 

Superintendents,  43,  124 
Superstitions,   as   conservative   forces, 

206  ;  in  the  European  War,  213 
Sweden,  65,  112 
Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  190 
Switzerland :     the    Jesuits    and    the 

Sonderhiitid,  181 
Sylvester,  Pope,  68 
Symbols :    of    the  Apostles,    33,    48 ; 

Athanasian,  54 
Syria,  65,  67 

Tacitus'  Annals,  record  in,  regarding 

Jesus,  15-16 
Talmud,    the,    legend    in,    regarding 

Jesus,  15 
Tariffs  for  sin,  69 
Taxil,  Leo,  193 
Telepathy,  191 
Templars,  the,  80-1 
TertuUian's  Apolofiy,  46  ;  his  attitude 

to  Montanism,  48 
Teutonic  knights,  80 
Thekla,  26 
Theodosius  I,  Emperor,  50 

II,  Emperor,  50,  55 

Theophilanthropists,  157-8 
Theosophy,  191-2 
Theresa,  St.,  144 
"Third  Order,"  the,  78 
Thirty  Years'  War,  128 


INDEX 


227 


Thomas  a  Kempis,  94 

Aquinas,  St. ,  94 

Tiberius,  Emperor,  16 

Tithes  from  Chiu'ch  to  Princes  (twelfth 
century),  67 

Tolstoy,  Leo,  quoted,  206 

"Tongues,  speaking  with,"  44 

Torquemada,  145-6 

Toulouse,  90 

Trajan,  Emperor,  quoted,  45 

Transubstantiation  Doctrine  (see  also 
Eucharist),  83,  84,  110  ;  "test"  im- 
posed against,  in  England,  162 

Trappe,  La,  138 

Trent,  Council  of,  121-2 

Trinity,  the,  Doctrine  of,  31,  54,  115 

of  the  Jesuits,  54,  186 

Truces  established  by  the  Church,  63 

Ultramontanism,  173-5 
Unitarianism,  114,  129,  165-6 
Urban  VIII,  Pope,  147 

Vacandard  quoted,  148 

Veuillot,  175 

Vigilantius,  55,  57-9 

Vincent  de  Paul,  St.,  138 

Vinet,  Alexandre,  197 

Visionaries,  44 

Voltaire,  estimate  of,  153  ;  his  intoler- 
ance, 154;  his  aristocratic  contempt 
for  the  masses,  186  ;  correspondence 
with  D'Alembert,  153-4  ;  The 
Encyclopcedia,  152  seq.  ;  Ecrasons 
Vinjfamr,  154  ;  quoted,  on  democratic 
base  of  the  Roman  Church,  64 ;  on 
the  Crusades,  66  ;  on  the  tarilf  for 
sin,  69  ;  on  the  False  Decretals,  69  ; 
on  Gregory  VII,  71;  on  supreme 
powers  of  the  Papacy,   73 ;   on  St. 


Francis  of  Assisi,  77-8 ;  on  Rome's 
attitude  to  reason,  88;  on  Wyclif, 
95  ;  on  "infamous  superstition," 
97;  on  Eucharistic  doctrines,  110; 
on  Luther's  alleged  yision  of  the 
devil,  111-12;  on  Luther  as  anti- 
Pope,  112-13 ;  on  the  Reformation 
in  England,  117;  on  Quakers,  117  ; 
on  Fenelon,  144  ;  on  Spaniards' 
silence,  146  :  cited,  98,  108-13,  116 

Waldenses,  Church  of  the,  91 ;  doctrines 
of,  preached  by  Wyclif,  95  ;  perse- 
cution of,  91 ;  massacre  of,  119 

Waldo,  Pierre,  91 

Wandering  Jew,  The,  182 

War  of  1914-18,  superstitions  in,  and 
attitude  to,  of  the  Churches,  212-15 

Wesley,  John  and  Charles,  159 

Westminster  Confession,  159 

Westphalia  Treaty,  128-9 

Whitefield,  George,  159-60 

William  of  Orange,  127 

the  Silent,  125 

Willibrod,  St.,  76 

Witches,  100-1 

Wladimir,  conversion  of,  64 

Women,  St.  Paul's  attitude  to,  26-7, 
44,  49 ;  Montanist  attitude  to,  49  ; 
Franciscan  attitude  to,  78 ;  Roman 
Church's  attitude  to  (1215),  86 

Worms,  Council  of  (1076),  71  ;  Diet 
of  (1521),  111  seq. 

Wyclif,  John,  95 

Xavier,  St.  Francois,  122 
Young,  Brigham,  167 
Zwingli,  114-15 


Printed    in    Great   Britain   by 

Richard  Clay  &  Sons.  Limited, 

bungay,  suffolk. 


COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY   LIBRARIES 

This  book  is  due  on  the  date  indicated  below,  or  at  the 
expiration  of  a  definite  period  after  the  date  of  borrowing,  as 
provided  by  the  library  rules  or  by  special  arrangement  with 
the  Librarian  in  charge. 


DATE  BORROWED 

DATE  DUE 

DATE  BORROWED 

DATE  DUE 

MOM  It 

?nQ3 

NUV  A* 

C28(94e)MI0O 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 


0038564343 


Srittle  do  NOf 

PHOTOCOPY 


931 


Rf?4 


&^^^^ 


9' 


